The strongest defensible range is an estimated annual owner-operator benefit of approximately a $28,000 loss to a $165,000 benefit, with a base scenario near $53,000. A manager-run version produces approximately a $160,000 loss to $32,000 of pre-tax owner earnings after a manager-cost proxy. These figures apply to a full-year reporting franchisee business in the 2025 cohort, not necessarily one territory: the reporting businesses averaged about 2.6 territories each.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Junkluggers Franchising SPE LLC. It combines identified facts from the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with separately labeled operating-overhead and manager-cost assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by territory count, location, sales mix, job size, dumping costs, production labor, vehicle utilization, local marketing, office payroll, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Legal franchisor: Junkluggers Franchising SPE LLC. Item 19 status: the 2026 FDD reports 2025 Gross Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, Gross Profit, and Gross Margin for franchised businesses, but it does not report owner compensation, Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, or cash available to an owner. Applicable cohort: 43 franchisees representing 112 territories with complete full-year QuickBooks records. External benchmark: May 2023 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data for General and Operations Managers in NAICS 562000. Checked: July 20, 2026. No matching 2026 FDD was verified on a franchise-controlled public URL, so FDD references below are unlinked plain-text citations by Item and page.
Item 19 supplies same-brand revenue and gross-profit anchors. The earnings result must still be modeled because the disclosure defines several operating-expense categories without publishing their amounts.
The largest missing input is actual non-production operating expense by franchisee, including office payroll, insurance, facility costs, merchant fees, and professional fees.
Per reporting franchisee business in Item 19 Table 4 for calendar 2025.
Gross Revenue minus the FDD-defined Cost of Goods Sold.
Not an operating margin and not an owner-earnings margin.
The complete-record Table 4 population; 20 other full-year franchisees were excluded.
112 territories divided by 43 franchisee entities; this is portfolio-level evidence.
BLS mean wage of $115,340 plus a 15% analytical payroll-burden allowance.
What does The Junkluggers Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially measures revenue and gross profit, not annual owner earnings. For calendar 2025, Table 4 reports results per franchisee business for 43 franchised operators with complete, standardized financial records. Because those businesses represented 112 territories, the central figures are generally multi-territory portfolio results rather than clean single-territory economics.
The FDD defines Gross Profit as Gross Revenue minus Cost of Goods Sold. Its Cost of Goods Sold definition includes production labor, dumping and hauling fees, equipment rentals, materials, subcontractors, workers' compensation, fuel, vehicle repairs, parking, tolls, and fleet-management software. Gross Profit therefore has more economic meaning than Gross Revenue, but it still sits above substantial overhead and owner compensation.
| Cohort in Item 19 Table 4 | Reporting population | Average Gross Revenue | Average Gross Profit / margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Highest revenue quartile | 11 franchisees / 32 territories | $1,471,945 | $639,853 / 43% |
| All complete-record reporters | 43 franchisees / 112 territories | $741,226 | $309,226 / 42% |
| Lowest revenue quartile | 11 franchisees / 32 territories | $310,679 | $111,599 / 36% |
Source: The Junkluggers 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 4, pp. 68-70. Quartiles are historical revenue cohorts, not probabilities, forecasts, or promised performance levels.
The Federal Trade Commission cautions that gross sales do not reveal actual profit because overhead and other expenses can make a high-revenue outlet unprofitable. The FDD's $741,226 average Gross Revenue should therefore never be described as owner income. See the FTC's guide to evaluating franchise earnings claims.
How complete is the reporting population?
The complete-record profit sample covers 43 of the 63 full-year franchisees, or about 68%. Item 19 excludes 20 full-year franchisees representing 38 territories because they did not submit a standardized profit-and-loss statement or complete QuickBooks records. It also excludes businesses that opened or ceased during 2025 from Table 4. This is an official limitation for the 2025 population, and it can create selection risk because the economics of the excluded full-year operators are unknown.
Item 19 Table 3 provides broader Gross Revenue data for 63 franchisees and 128 full-year territories, including an average of $733,365 and a median of $609,012 per franchisee. However, those broader revenue data cannot be combined silently with Table 4's narrower gross-profit sample. The model below keeps each Table 4 revenue cohort paired with its compatible Table 4 gross profit.
How was the annual owner-earnings range estimated?
The range is estimated by starting with each compatible Item 19 Gross Profit cohort and subtracting known recurring franchise obligations plus an explicit reserve for operating expenses that Item 19 does not quantify. The Conservative scenario uses the lowest revenue quartile average, the Base scenario uses the complete-record average, and the Upside scenario uses the highest revenue quartile average.
- Mature full-year operation: Local Marketing is annualized as the greater of $48,000 or 10% of annual Gross Revenue, reflecting the ongoing $4,000 monthly minimum or 10% of the preceding month's revenue after the opening period.
- Junk Removal Services mix: The model treats scenario revenue as Junk Removal Services revenue, so the 2% Brand Fund and 5% Call Center Fee apply to the full amount. Remix-specific fees and charitable contributions are not modeled because the revenue mix is not disclosed.
- Unreported overhead reserve: 14% of revenue in Conservative, 10% in Base, and 8% in Upside. This editorial sensitivity covers non-production payroll, employee benefits, insurance, merchant fees, selling costs, administrative and facility expenses, and professional fees that Item 19 defines but does not quantify.
- Owner labor: The owner-operator result does not subtract a salary for the owner's work. It is therefore an owner-operator benefit, combining residual business economics with compensation for management labor.
- Not included: personal income taxes, financing principal, interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, vehicle replacement, optional technology, GPS costs, Key Account incentives, and any incremental Remix obligations. Omitting these items can overstate cash available to the owner.
| Annual calculation | Conservative | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official Average Gross Revenue | $310,679 | $741,226 | $1,471,945 |
| Official Average Gross Profit | $111,599 | $309,226 | $639,853 |
| Royalty Fee, 7% | -$21,748 | -$51,886 | -$103,036 |
| Brand Fund, 2% | -$6,214 | -$14,825 | -$29,439 |
| Call Center Fee, 5% | -$15,534 | -$37,061 | -$73,597 |
| Annualized Local Marketing | -$48,000 | -$74,123 | -$147,195 |
| Technology Fee | -$4,200 | -$4,200 | -$4,200 |
| Unreported-overhead reserve | -$43,495 | -$74,123 | -$117,756 |
| Estimated owner-operator benefit | -$27,591 | $53,009 | $164,631 |
| Estimated manager-run owner earnings after $132,641 manager cost | -$160,232 | -$79,632 | $31,990 |
FDD inputs: The Junkluggers 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 13-23, and Item 19, Table 4, pp. 68-70. Calculations use full-precision inputs and are rounded to the nearest dollar only for display.
Annual estimated owner-operator benefit before debt service and personal taxes.
Interpretation: Revenue scale and gross margin materially change the result, but even the Base scenario leaves only about 7.2% of revenue as owner-operator benefit after the modeled deductions.
Source and method: Official cohort averages from The Junkluggers 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 4; recurring fees from Item 6; unreported-overhead reserves are explicit editorial scenario assumptions.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Active owner operation changes the modeled annual result by approximately $132,641 because the owner is assumed to replace a paid General and Operations Manager. That added amount is labor value, not passive business profit. The FDD's default structure supports this distinction: Item 15 requires a Key Person who owns at least 5% to personally manage the business as a primary occupation and work from the business office. A full-time Designated Manager may be requested for multiple territories or a non-operating Key Person, but approval is discretionary.
The manager proxy starts with the May 2023 BLS mean annual wage of $115,340 for General and Operations Managers in Waste Management and Remediation Services. The model adds a clearly labeled 15% allowance for employer payroll taxes and benefits, producing $132,641. BLS excludes self-employed workers, which makes it suitable as an employee replacement-cost benchmark rather than evidence of owner income.
The same operating scenarios, separated by who supplies day-to-day management labor.
Interpretation: The business does not become more profitable merely because the owner manages it; rather, the owner captures the economic value of management work that would otherwise be paid to an employee.
Source and method: Owner-operator scenarios above; manager-run values subtract a $132,641 replacement-manager cost based on BLS May 2023 industry wage data plus a 15% editorial payroll-burden allowance.
Under the Base scenario, the modeled $53,009 is not pure passive profit. It is the remaining economic benefit before assigning a salary to the owner's day-to-day management work. Paying a market-rate manager instead moves the same scenario to an estimated $79,632 loss before debt principal and personal taxes.
Which variables can move annual earnings the most?
The largest earnings drivers are gross margin, required marketing, unreported office and facility overhead, and whether the owner supplies management labor. The result is estimated rather than official because Item 19 does not publish the full expense bridge from Gross Profit to Operating Profit or Net Income.
- Gross Revenue
- Customer and related business revenue under the FDD definition. It is not owner income.
- Gross Profit
- Gross Revenue minus source-defined Cost of Goods Sold. It remains before major operating overhead, franchise obligations, owner compensation, finance charges, and taxes.
- Estimated owner-operator benefit
- Residual after modeled unit-level costs and recurring franchise obligations, before assigning compensation to the working owner. It combines labor value and residual business economics.
- Estimated manager-run owner earnings
- Residual after subtracting a replacement-manager cost. It is pre-tax and before financing principal; it is not guaranteed passive income.
Why is the earnings range so wide?
The official revenue cohorts are widely separated, and the lowest revenue cohort also has a lower gross margin. Average Gross Revenue is $310,679 in the lowest quartile versus $1,471,945 in the highest quartile. Average Gross Margin is 36% versus 43%. At the lower revenue level, the $4,000 monthly Local Marketing floor is approximately 15.4% of annual revenue rather than 10%, intensifying operating leverage.
Commercial mix can also matter. Item 19 reports that commercial revenue averaged and had a median of 33% of Gross Revenue among 63 franchisees, with a range from 10% to 77%. It also reports a $738 average commercial job size versus $615 average job size across the broader reporting population. These are official operating metrics, but the FDD does not provide a compatible commercial-versus-residential profit margin, so the scenario does not assign a profit premium to commercial work.
Why not estimate a single territory?
A reliable single-territory earnings result cannot be reproduced from the disclosed cost table. Item 19 Table 3-A reports 2025 Gross Revenue per territory, including a $227,465 median and $335,754 average across 128 full-year territories. Table 4, however, reports Gross Profit per franchisee business, and those franchisees averaged multiple territories. Dividing portfolio gross profit mechanically by territory count would ignore shared office payroll, facilities, vehicles, management structure, territory maturity, and revenue concentration.
What should a prospective owner verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should replace every editorial assumption with system-specific evidence before using the range in a financing or personal-income plan. The most useful work is to obtain written Item 19 substantiation and compare complete profit-and-loss statements from franchisees with a similar territory count, tenure, vehicle fleet, labor model, and commercial mix.
- Request written substantiation: confirm the exact accounts included in Cost of Goods Sold and why the Table 4 title references Total Operating Expenses without publishing a quantified total.
- Match the ownership footprint: identify one-territory, two-territory, and larger operators separately; do not compare portfolio revenue with a single-territory plan.
- Rebuild operating overhead: obtain actual office payroll, benefits, insurance, merchant fees, storage or facility rent, utilities, professional fees, and local software costs.
- Test owner labor: ask active owners how many hours they work and manager-run owners what they pay a Designated Manager, including payroll taxes and benefits.
- Reconcile marketing: verify actual Local Marketing spend, Brand Fund payments, Call Center fees, cooperatives, and whether any spending receives credits.
- Separate cash from accounting profit: identify interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, truck replacement, working-capital changes, and debt principal separately.
- Interview current and former franchisees: use Item 20 and Exhibits F and G to sample operators across revenue quartiles, openings, transfers, and exits rather than speaking only with selected high performers.
What is the most defensible annual earnings conclusion?
The most defensible current conclusion is a scenario-based owner-operator range of approximately -$28,000 to $165,000 per full-year franchisee business, with a modeled Base result near $53,000. This is not an official owner-profit disclosure. It is anchored to the 2026 FDD's compatible 2025 Gross Revenue and Gross Profit cohorts and then reduced by disclosed recurring obligations and explicit overhead assumptions.
The principal earnings driver is the combination of revenue scale and gross margin. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the actual amount of non-production operating expense for the 20 full-year franchisees omitted from Table 4 and for a buyer's specific territory portfolio. Owner involvement is also decisive: using the BLS-based manager proxy changes each scenario by about $132,641, meaning much of the owner-operator result may compensate labor rather than represent passive residual profit.
Before making a decision, verify Item 19 substantiation, complete P&Ls, territory counts, manager compensation, marketing spend, and debt obligations with Junkluggers Franchising SPE LLC and a representative cross-section of current and former franchisees. Personal taxes should be modeled separately with a qualified tax adviser because entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and owner circumstances vary.