A reasonable planning range for one actively operated Jet’s Pizza restaurant is approximately $76,000 to $176,000 in estimated owner-operator benefit before personal income taxes. The modeled residual business profit is much lower—about $11,000 to $111,000—and the difference is the estimated market value of management work performed by the owner. The base scenario is about $118,000 of owner-operator benefit, including about $53,000 of residual business profit.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Jet’s America, Inc. It combines verified 2026 FDD facts with separately identified U.S. Census Bureau, National Restaurant Association, and Bureau of Labor Statistics benchmarks. Actual results can differ materially because of location, format, sales, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, regional advertising charges, and execution.
Data basis
- Legal franchisor
- Jet’s America, Inc., offering a U.S. Jet’s Pizza restaurant franchise.
- Disclosure document
- 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, issued April 30, 2026. No matching public copy was identified on a franchisor-controlled website; the FDD is therefore cited by year, Item, and page without a link.
- Item 19 status
- No financial performance representation. The document reports neither franchised-unit sales nor owner profit.
- Applicable format
- A typical approximately 1,200–1,500 square-foot restaurant focused primarily on carry-out and delivery.
- External benchmarks
- 2022 Economic Census for NAICS 722513 Limited-Service Restaurants; 2024 limited-service restaurant operating data; May 2024 Food Service Manager wage data.
- Date checked
- July 19, 2026.
What does Jet’s Item 19 actually disclose?
Officially, Jet’s discloses no unit sales, operating profit, EBITDA, net income, cash flow, or owner compensation. Item 19 says the franchisor does not make representations about future franchisee performance or the past performance of company-owned or franchised outlets (2026 FDD, Item 19, p. 32). That makes any published owner-income figure an estimate rather than a same-brand result.
The strongest same-brand financial evidence is therefore structural: the restaurant format, recurring fee formulas, owner-supervision requirement, and outlet population. Item 20 reports 413 franchised outlets and 61 company or affiliate-owned outlets at December 31, 2025, but those counts measure system size—not revenue or profit (2026 FDD, Item 20, pp. 33–41).
The 2026 FDD does not supply even a Jet’s-specific revenue anchor. The model below uses a broad limited-service restaurant revenue benchmark and must not be read as Jet’s average unit volume. The Federal Trade Commission’s franchise guidance similarly warns that gross sales do not reveal actual costs or net profit.
Derived average per U.S. employer establishment in NAICS 722513 for 2022; not Jet’s sales.
2024 median income before taxes among National Restaurant Association survey respondents.
Year-end 2025 outlet count; it supplies no performance sample or earnings distribution.
Twelve times the $1,200 monthly minimum; the normal formula is 12% of Acquired Inventory.
May 2024 U.S. median annual wage for Food Service Managers; local wages may differ.
No same-brand sales or earnings cohort is available for direct owner-income analysis.
How is the earnings range modeled without a sales disclosure?
The model uses a $1.323 million broad-industry revenue anchor, a 4.0% limited-service pre-tax margin, and transparent low/base/high sensitivities. Every earnings number in this section is estimated for one mature, typical-format U.S. restaurant; none is reported by Jet’s.
Scenario revenue: 80%, 100%, and 120% of that central benchmark, because no same-brand distribution is disclosed.
Scenario margin: 1%, 4%, and 7%, using the 4.0% limited-service median plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Residual business profit: scenario revenue × scenario pre-tax margin.
Owner-operator benefit: residual business profit + $65,310 manager labor-value proxy.
The revenue benchmark comes from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2022 Economic Census table. The matching NAICS 722513 definition includes pizza delivery shops and limited-service pizza parlors, but also many other limited-service concepts. The 4.0% margin is the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 median income before taxes for limited-service respondents, based on a survey of more than 900 restaurants across full-service and limited-service segments. It is a management benchmark, not a Jet’s margin.
| Scenario | Revenue assumption | Pre-tax margin | Residual business profit | Owner-operator benefit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $1,058,000 | 1.0% | $11,000 | $76,000 |
| Base | $1,323,000 | 4.0% | $53,000 | $118,000 |
| Upside | $1,588,000 | 7.0% | $111,000 | $176,000 |
The scenario labels are not probabilities, percentiles, or forecasts. Calculations use full-precision inputs and are rounded to the nearest $1,000 for publication. The 4.0% source measure is income before taxes, not cash flow. Its public summary does not isolate interest, depreciation, or owner compensation, so the model does not reverse those items. Financing principal, personal income taxes, and capital expenditures are outside the published owner-benefit figures.
Pre-tax profit remaining after a fully staffed limited-service operating-cost benchmark, before financing principal and personal taxes.
Interpretation: the modeled residual varies by more than tenfold because a restaurant’s small pre-tax margin is highly sensitive to both revenue and cost control.
Sources: 2026 FDD structural facts; U.S. Census Bureau 2022 Economic Census, NAICS 722513; National Restaurant Association 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract summary using 2024 results. Values are independent scenarios.
How much does owner involvement change the result?
Active owner operation can add approximately $65,310 of labor value to the modeled residual profit, but that amount compensates the owner for managing the restaurant. It is not passive profit. The 2026 FDD requires each store to have at least one owner who personally supervises the business and describes that owner-operator as serving as a manager (Item 15, p. 27). Jet’s current franchise application also says it is accepting applicants who will be heavily involved owner-operators or have an owner-operator partner.
The labor-value proxy is the BLS May 2024 median annual wage for Food Service Managers. It is a national occupational benchmark; a qualified general manager may cost more or less after local wages, bonuses, payroll taxes, and benefits.
The horizontal gap is the $65,310 manager labor-value proxy added when the owner performs the management role.
Interpretation: in the conservative case, most of the owner’s modeled benefit is compensation for work. Even in the upside case, $65,310 of the total is labor value rather than passive return on capital.
Source: BLS Food Service Managers median wage, May 2024; residual-profit scenarios described above. The add-back assumes the benchmark restaurant is staffed with paid management. Public benchmark summaries do not confirm how every respondent classified owner compensation, so this is a sensitivity—not an accounting identity.
A fully manager-run or absentee interpretation is not supported by the current operating model. The residual-profit figures are useful as a comparison baseline, but a buyer should not treat them as evidence that Jet’s approves passive ownership. The official franchise process states “Owner-operator required.”
Which recurring fees can move the margin?
The largest disclosed franchise charges are based on Acquired Inventory rather than Gross Sales, which makes their sales-margin impact impossible to calculate from the FDD alone. Acquired Inventory includes the cost of food ingredients, beverages, packaging, paper goods, cleaning supplies, and other inventory and supplies purchased during the reporting period (2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 5–8).
| Recurring obligation | 2026 FDD term | How it affects the estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty Fee | 12% of Acquired Inventory; minimum $1,200 per month | The minimum is $14,400 annually, but the percentage formula may be higher. |
| General Advertising Fund | Up to 2% of Acquired Inventory when established | The precise rate can change and cannot be converted to a sales percentage without inventory-purchase data. |
| Regional Advertising Fund | Regional formula, up to 10% of Acquired Inventory | The current regional rate is a major store-specific diligence item. |
| Technology Fee | Up to 2% of Acquired Inventory; currently not imposed | The FDD permits implementation on 90 days’ notice. |
| Gift Card and Loyalty Administration | Currently $30–$99 per month | Approximately $360–$1,188 annually before future vendor changes. |
The 4.0% external pre-tax margin is used as an all-in operating benchmark, so the model does not subtract these FDD charges a second time. That avoids double counting. However, the benchmark does not prove that a Jet’s restaurant’s inventory-based royalty and advertising burden matches the typical limited-service respondent. A buyer needs the actual Acquired Inventory ratio and current regional fund rate to replace this broad margin proxy.
Item 7’s $627,500–$843,000 initial investment range is also not an annual operating expense and is not subtracted from one year of revenue. Jet’s does not offer or guarantee financing (2026 FDD, Item 10, p. 14). Loan principal, interest structure, and required capital spending therefore need a separatecash-flow analysis.
What makes this earnings estimate uncertain?
The largest uncertainty is the absence of same-brand sales and expense data. The confidence rating is LIMITED because the result depends materially on a broad government revenue average, a cross-brand restaurant margin survey, and an editorial scenario spread.
- No Jet’s performance cohort: Item 19 supplies no average, median, quartiles, sample size, maturity threshold, geography, or percentage achieving a result.
- Revenue mismatch: NAICS 722513 includes many fast-food, fast-casual, takeout, and delivery concepts. Its average employer establishment is not a proxy for a specific Jet’s location.
- Margin mismatch: The 4.0% figure is a 2024 median for limited-service survey respondents, not a Jet’s franchised-unit margin and not necessarily a comparable mix of unit ages, locations, or ownership roles.
- Owner-compensation classification: Public benchmark summaries do not show whether every respondent treated working-owner pay consistently. The $65,310 labor add-back is therefore a separate owner-role sensitivity.
- Fee conversion gap: The FDD’s percentage fees use Acquired Inventory as the denominator, while the external margin is expressed as a percentage of sales.
- Debt and capital needs: Financing principal, personal taxes, remodels, replacement equipment, and other capital expenditures can materially reduce cash available for distribution.
Item 20’s 413 franchised outlets are not an earnings sample. Outlet growth, transfers, reacquisitions, and closures can inform system diligence, but they cannot establish how much a typical owner earns.
What should a buyer verify before relying on the range?
A buyer should replace each broad assumption with store-level evidence from comparable franchisees and written substantiation for any financial claim made during the sales process. The FTC says prospective franchisees may request the written substantiation supporting an Item 19 claim; here, Item 19 contains no claim, so any separate sales or income number should be reconciled to the disclosure rules and the permitted exceptions.
- Three years of comparable P&Ls: Ask active owners of similar 1,200–1,500 square-foot carry-out and delivery restaurants for annual sales, food and packaging costs, labor, occupancy, delivery-platform costs, repairs, insurance, and pre-tax income.
- Owner hours and payroll treatment: Determine whether the owner takes W-2 wages, a draw, distributions, or a combination, and whether the P&L includes a market-rate manager expense.
- Acquired Inventory reconciliation: Calculate the actual Acquired Inventory percentage of sales and the royalty dollars paid under the 12% formula versus the monthly minimum.
- Current advertising obligations: Obtain the precise General Advertising Fund and Regional Advertising Fund rates for the proposed market, plus any voluntary local spend needed to compete.
- Location economics: Verify base rent, common-area maintenance, property tax pass-throughs, delivery radius, wage rates, insurance, and local customer acquisition costs.
- Debt-service schedule: Model interest and principal using the buyer’s actual financed amount, term, fees, and rate; do not deduct the Item 7 startup investment as though it were a one-year expense.
- Existing-outlet records: For a resale, request the actual outlet records that Item 19 permits the franchisor to provide and reconcile them to tax returns, bank deposits, and point-of-sale reports.
What is the strongest defensible answer?
For planning—not prediction—the strongest defensible range is approximately $76,000 to $176,000 of annual owner-operator benefit, with a base scenario near $118,000. This is a scenario-based estimate, not an official Jet’s result. Within that range, modeled residual business profit is approximately $11,000 to $111,000; the remaining $65,310 represents the market value of the owner’s management labor.
The most important earnings driver is the combination of unit sales and operating margin: small changes in food, labor, occupancy, and advertising costs can materially change a thin restaurant margin. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the lack of a same-brand Item 19 sales or profit cohort, compounded by inventory-based fees whose store-level burden cannot be converted to sales without actual purchasing records.
A buyer should treat the range as a diligence framework. The decision should turn on comparable franchisee P&Ls, the current Acquired Inventory and regional advertising burden, the owner’s required working role, and written substantiation for any financial performance statement received during the franchise sale.