How Much Does a Linc Service Franchise Owner Make?

Officially, Item 19 reports Average Revenue, Total Cost of Sales, and Gross Profit by revenue tier for FY2024. It does not report annual owner earnings. Under the FDD definition, Gross Profit equals Revenue minus Total Cost of Sales, and Total Cost of Sales includes job costs plus a labor-hour “Burden” allocation. The franchisor explicitly says other overhead and operating expenses still must be deducted before determining net income or business profit.

The all-business column reports Average Revenue of $9,753,760 and Average Gross Profit of $3,174,374, a derived Gross Profit margin of about 32.5%. That is revenue economics before unreported operating overhead—not the amount an owner can draw or distribute.

Source: 2026 Linc Service FDD, Item 19, pp. 36–40. Margins are derived from the disclosed Average Gross Profit and Average Revenue. The table is historical, unaudited, and uses FY2024, November 1, 2023 through October 31, 2024.

How representative is the Item 19 population?

The population is broad but not cleanly comparable to one new U.S. independent franchisee. The 76 businesses include 57 independent third-party and 19 affiliate-held franchises. Item 19 says 68 are in 28 U.S. states and the remainder are foreign. It also excludes 28 domestic businesses: 13 that terminated during FY2024 and 15 that did not submit financial data.

There is also a printed reconciliation issue: the geographic counts listed in Item 19 add to 75, while the stated total is 76. That one-business discrepancy does not establish that the averages are wrong, but it is a specific point to request clarification on when asking for written substantiation.

Item 20 adds further context. Franchised outlets declined from 101 at the start of FY2023 to 71 at the end of FY2025. During FY2025, the table shows no openings, five terminations, and two nonrenewals. Those counts do not prove poor earnings, but they increase the importance of interviewing former as well as current franchisees.

The scenarios apply one official U.S. industry operating-cash proxy to three FDD revenue-tier averages, then deduct Linc Service royalty and technology costs. The outputs are estimates, not FDD-reported results. The three revenue anchors are descriptive tier averages, not probabilities, forecasts, or lower/base/upper percentiles. The more-than-$7 million tier is shown in the official table but is not used as a scenario anchor because its $15.46 million average represents a materially larger operating scale and would dominate the range.

The IRS Corporation Income Tax Returns Complete Report provides tax-year 2022 aggregate data for 85,508 corporate returns classified as Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors. The calculation is:

This is an EBITDA-like operating-cash proxy, not GAAP EBITDA and not Linc Service performance. It leaves compensation of officers and wages in operating expenses. It also covers a broader industry mix than Linc Service, including businesses with residential, installation, construction, and service activity. The Census Bureau definition of NAICS 238220 is the closest official industry classification, but it is not identical to the Linc Service commercial maintenance model.

What is included and excluded?

• Included: a broad industry level of normal operating costs, compensation of officers and employees, the FDD's tiered royalty, and a conservative $15,600 annual LincWare maintenance assumption.
• Interest: excluded from operating earnings because the IRS proxy adds interest back. Financing interest must be deducted separately for a financed buyer.
• Depreciation and amortization: added back. The model therefore does not fund vehicle, equipment, or other capital-expenditure replacement.
• Debt principal: excluded. Principal payments are financing cash flow, not an operating expense.
• Personal income tax: excluded. Entity structure, state, deductions, and owner circumstances determine tax outcomes.
• Owner distributions and retained earnings: not assumed. The estimated residual can be distributed, retained, or reinvested only after actual liquidity needs are known.

An active owner may capture labor value in addition to residual business profit, but only by doing the General Manager's work. Item 15 of the 2026 FDD recommends—but does not require—principal-owner participation. When the principal owner does not personally manage the business, a full-time General Manager approved by the franchisor is required.

The closest official wage benchmark is the BLS May 2023 industry estimate for General and Operations Managers in NAICS 238220: an annual mean wage of $124,600. Adding that wage to the manager-run residual gives an owner-operator benefit sensitivity. It is not a prediction that every owner can remove the entire position, and it excludes employer payroll taxes, benefits, and local wage variation.

The all-in operating margin is the largest unresolved variable. At the base FDD revenue anchor of $2,909,631, changing the benchmark margin by three percentage points changes estimated manager-run residual earnings by about $87,000 in either direction. This sensitivity is analytical, not FDD-reported.

That range illustrates why a clean “owner salary” number is not available. Item 19 does not disclose selling, general and administrative expense, office payroll, General Manager compensation, occupancy allocation, insurance, bad debt, professional fees, or other overhead below Gross Profit. The IRS benchmark is older, broader than the brand, and based only on corporate tax returns.

ABM Industries' broader Technical Solutions segment reported a 9.0% operating margin for fiscal 2025 in its 2025 Form 10-K. That figure is a company-segment cross-check, not a franchise-unit benchmark: the segment includes infrastructure, electrical, energy, eMobility, and mechanical work, and its accounting scope is not the same as Item 19.

The tiered royalty is the largest disclosed recurring franchise charge in the model. Item 6 applies cumulative rates to Gross Revenues, with lower marginal rates as revenue rises. The estimated effective royalty rate declines from 4.21% in the conservative scenario to 3.12% in the upside scenario.

Source: 2026 Linc Service FDD, Item 6, pp. 6–9. The scenario royalty is calculated cumulatively from the disclosed brackets; each scenario exceeds its applicable minimum royalty.

The FDD reports current software maintenance charges of $0–$15,600 per year, depending on users and selected legacy systems. The model uses the top of that range. This is conservative, but it could double-count some software expense already embedded in the IRS industry ratio if LincWare replaces an existing system rather than adding to it. The FDD also says a new required technology platform was being tested and that its periodic fees had not yet been determined. That unresolved cost is not modeled.

Item 11 says there is no required advertising fund or local/regional advertising cooperative as of the FDD date. The model therefore does not subtract a mandatory advertising percentage. Actual local marketing expense may still be necessary. Item 7's $66,530–$140,050 initial investment is not deducted from one year of revenue because startup investment is not an annual operating expense.

A buyer should obtain U.S.-only, independent-franchise operating detail below Gross Profit. The Federal Trade Commission explains that sales, income, or profit claims must have a reasonable basis and appear in Item 19; its consumer guide to buying a franchise also emphasizes checking geographic relevance and differences between franchised and company-owned outlets.

• Request Item 19 written substantiation: reconcile the stated 76 businesses to the listed geographic counts and ask for U.S.-only and independent-franchise breakouts.
• Build a below-Gross-Profit bridge: collect office payroll, General Manager compensation, occupancy, insurance, software, vehicle, bad-debt, professional-fee, and corporate-overhead detail.
• Match the correct cohort: compare an existing commercial HVAC contractor of similar revenue, service mix, employee count, territory, and owner role—not the $9.75 million mixed-population average by default.
• Confirm current technology charges: obtain written pricing and implementation timing for the new platform because the 2026 FDD leaves those periodic fees undetermined.
• Separate labor from profit: ask owner-operators how many hours they work and what management position their labor replaces; ask manager-run owners for actual manager payroll and benefits.
• Interview former franchisees: use the Item 20 and Exhibit K contacts to understand the 2023–2025 terminations and nonrenewals, including whether economics, strategy, retirement, acquisition, or another factor drove departure.
• Model financing and capital spending separately: subtract actual interest, debt principal, vehicle and equipment replacement, and working-capital needs from operating earnings before estimating distributable cash.

The official Linc Service contractor-franchise page frames the offer as a way for an existing organization to join the network. The official ABM Franchising Group page identifies Linc Service as one of its mechanical and electrical service franchise networks. Those format facts matter: the FDD assumes an existing HVAC business and facility, so these scenarios should not be read as a cold-start unit ramp.

The strongest defensible range is approximately $28,000–$210,000 in manager-run, pre-tax residual owner earnings, with a base scenario near $84,000. This is scenario-based, not official. For an active owner who fully replaces a separately paid General Manager, estimated owner-operator benefit is approximately $153,000–$335,000, but about $124,600 of each figure represents labor compensation rather than passive profit.

The most important driver is the actual operating margin after direct costs and all overhead. The largest unresolved uncertainty is that Item 19 stops at Gross Profit and combines U.S. and foreign, independent and affiliate-held businesses while excluding terminated and nonreporting domestic businesses. Before making a decision, a buyer should verify the Item 19 substantiation, obtain a U.S.-independent below-Gross-Profit expense bridge, confirm current technology fees, and test the model against current and former franchisee interviews.