For one modeled 45,000-target-household Molly Maid territory, the base case is approximately $32,000 of manager-run pre-tax owner earnings or $109,000 of owner-operator benefit. The owner-operator figure includes the market value of management labor performed by the owner; it is not passive business profit.
Data basis. Legal franchisor: Molly Maid SPV LLC; direct parent: Neighborly Assetco LLC. The 2026 U.S. FDD was issued April 1, 2026. Item 19 covers 2025 sales data from 188 reporting operators representing 402 franchised businesses. There were no company-owned outlets. The earnings model standardizes the disclosure to one 45,000-target-household territory and uses official federal industry benchmarks. Sources and calculations were checked July 19, 2026.
FDD citations: 2026 Molly Maid FDD, Item 5, pp. 14–16; Item 6, pp. 17–29; Item 15, pp. 60–61; Item 19, pp. 66–70; Item 20, pp. 70–77. No matching public FDD hosted on an official Molly Maid or Neighborly-controlled domain was verified, so the FDD citations are intentionally unlinked.
All 188 reporting operators in calendar 2025; revenue, not earnings.
The lower edge of the FDD’s typical standard-size range and upper edge of its mid-size range.
2023 nonfarm sole proprietorships in Administrative and Support Services, including businesses with losses.
Derived from the 2023 BLS median wage of $37.25 per hour for General and Operations Managers in NAICS 561700.
Applied by annual Gross Sales tier, plus a current 2% MAP contribution.
402 businesses reported through 188 operators; 432 franchises were open at year-end 2025.
What does Molly Maid’s Item 19 actually measure?
It measures Gross Sales per Target Household, not owner earnings. For calendar 2025, Item 19 reports each operator’s average Gross Sales divided by the combined Target Households assigned across that operator’s franchise agreements. The FDD then groups operators into performance bands and reports average, median, high, and low sales per Target Household.
The all-operator median was $18.77 per Target Household. The 4th-quartile group median was $11.11, while the 1st-quartile group median was $30.68. These are historical sales observations for reporting operators, not profit margins, salary figures, or probabilities of achieving a result.
The FDD’s strongest same-brand evidence is a sales-density measure. Payroll for cleaning teams, recruiting, vehicles, supplies, insurance, local office costs, franchisor charges, manager pay, interest, and depreciation still stand between Gross Sales and owner benefit.
How broad is the reporting population?
The reporting coverage is broad among full-year operators, but the exclusions matter. The FDD says 188 of 206 operators reported data, representing 402 franchised businesses. It excludes six businesses opened during 2025, 22 transferred businesses, two businesses with unreliable data, and 21 businesses that closed during the year. Item 20 also shows the system declined from 448 to 432 franchised outlets during 2025 and had no company-owned outlets.
How were the owner-earnings scenarios calculated?
The scenarios convert FDD sales per Target Household into revenue, apply an official owner-operated industry margin, remove the FDD’s License Fee and MAP contribution, and then separate owner labor from residual profit. The result is estimated, not reported by Molly Maid.
- Revenue anchor: 45,000 Target Households multiplied by the 4th-quartile median, all-operator median, or 1st-quartile median Gross Sales per Target Household from Item 19.
- Owner-operated benchmark: 2023 IRS nonfarm sole proprietorship data for Administrative and Support Services. Net income less deficit of $24.229 billion divided by $114.423 billion of business receipts equals 21.2%. The population includes businesses with losses.
- Franchise adjustment: subtract the progressive Molly Maid License Fee and the current 2% MAP contribution. The model conservatively treats these as incremental to the broad IRS owner-operated benchmark.
- Manager-run adjustment: subtract $77,480, derived from the 2023 BLS median wage of $37.25 per hour for General and Operations Managers in Services to Buildings and Dwellings multiplied by 2,080 hours.
| Scenario | Modeled Gross Sales | Owner-operator benefit | Manager-run owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Conservative 4th-quartile group median: $11.11 per TH |
$500,000 | $63,000 | −$14,000 |
|
Base All-operator median: $18.77 per TH |
$845,000 | $109,000 | $32,000 |
|
Upside 1st-quartile group median: $30.68 per TH |
$1,381,000 | $183,000 | $106,000 |
Rounding: calculations use full-precision inputs and are shown to the nearest $1,000. “Manager-run owner earnings” means estimated pre-tax residual after a market-value manager wage, before personal income taxes and before financing principal payments. The IRS benchmark includes interest and depreciation deductions. The BLS wage adjustment excludes employer payroll taxes and benefits.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Molly Maid generally expects direct owner performance or supervision unless it consents to a manager-run structure. Item 15 says an individual franchisee must directly perform or supervise the business unless the franchisor agrees otherwise. If the owner does not supervise, a trained bona fide manager must directly supervise the business.
The owner-operator benefit therefore combines two economic components: residual business profit plus compensation for management labor performed by the owner. The manager-run owner earnings figure removes the annualized BLS manager wage to isolate a more passive residual. Neither measure is after-tax take-home pay.
- Gross Sales: customer revenue as defined by the FDD. It is not salary, owner draw, distributions, or profit.
- Owner-operator benefit: estimated pre-tax economic benefit after modeled operating costs and selected franchise charges, including the labor value of the owner’s management work.
- Manager-run owner earnings: estimated residual after subtracting a market manager wage, but before personal income taxes and financing principal.
- Owner draw or distribution: a cash-transfer mechanism. It does not determine whether the business created economic profit.
In this model, owner involvement adds approximately $77,480 of labor value. That amount is not passive income. A buyer comparing Molly Maid with salaried employment should separate payment for hours worked from return on invested capital.
Which Molly Maid fees can move annual earnings most?
The License Fee and 2% MAP contribution are the clearest recurring franchisor charges in the scenario calculation. Other required marketing, technology, and call-center costs are material, but their overlap with ordinary expenses already embedded in the IRS net-income benchmark cannot be measured precisely.
| FDD obligation | Disclosed amount | Scenario treatment | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| License Fee | Progressive 6.5% to 3% of Gross Sales; minimum fees may apply | Subtracted using the disclosed annual tiers | Approximately $32,500, $53,000, and $81,500 across the three revenue scenarios. |
| MAP contribution | Currently 2% of Gross Sales | Subtracted in full | Approximately $10,000, $16,900, and $27,600 across the scenarios. |
| Minimum Local Marketing Spend | $1.00 to $0.15 per TH per year, based on weekly-sales thresholds | Not subtracted again | The IRS benchmark already includes ordinary business advertising. If this requirement is additive rather than substitutive, earnings fall dollar-for-dollar. |
| Required software | $155.45 monthly Technology Package plus $405 monthly Housecall Pro; other accounts and QuickBooks may add cost | Assumed within ordinary administrative expense | The two stated base fees total about $6,725 per year before optional or additional software. |
| Call Center Program | $250 to $449.99 monthly plus $25 to $40 per booked appointment | Assumed within ordinary administrative expense | The variable appointment charge cannot be modeled without booking volume. |
Add-on sensitivity: if Minimum Local Marketing Spend, the two stated base software fees, and the minimum fixed call-center charge are fully additive to — rather than substitutes for — expenses embedded in the IRS benchmark, the three scenarios would be lower by approximately $55,000, $32,000, and $16,000, respectively. The per-booked-appointment call-center charge, employer payroll burden on a hired manager, and optional software would reduce results further.
Why is the evidence confidence limited?
Confidence is limited because the same-brand FDD stops at sales, while the profit bridge relies on broad federal industry data. The scenario is reproducible, but it is not a substitute for the actual profit-and-loss statements of Molly Maid franchisees operating comparable territories.
- Per-operator, not clean per-unit data: Item 19 calculates sales per Target Householdacross each reporting operator’s combined franchise agreements. The 206 owners held 432 businesses at year-end, so many operators were multi-territory.
- Closed businesses are excluded: 21 businesses closed during 2025 and were not in the full-year Item 19 population. Excluding closures can make continuing-outlet sales metrics look stronger than the experience of all owners who entered the year.
- Broad margin proxy: IRS Administrative and Support Services covers more than residential cleaning. The 21.2% sole-proprietor ratio includes owner labor and tax-accounting deductions; it is not a Molly Maid margin.
- Expense overlap is unresolved: federal tax data include ordinary advertising and administrative costs, but do not identify whether Molly Maid’s MAP, local marketing, software, and call-center requirements replace or add to those costs.
- Manager compensation varies locally: the BLS benchmark is national and industry-wide. Actual wages, bonuses, payroll taxes, benefits, and recruiting costs depend on the market and management scope.
- No company-operated comparison: Item 20 reports zero company-owned outlets, so there is no same-brand company-store profit or manager-cost proxy.
IRS 2022 corporation data for “Other administrative and support services” show aggregate net income less aggregate deficits equal to about 7.8% of receipts. That broad corporate ratio is not used to generate the scenarios, but it provides a reasonableness check: the modeled manager-run margin ranges from negative at the conservative sales anchor to about 7.7% at the upside anchor.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
Verify the actual territory, comparable franchisee profit-and-loss statements, and the manager-versus-owner labor structure. The FTC cautions that gross sales can look substantial while overhead leaves little or no profit, and buyers have the right to request written substantiation for an Item 19 representation.
- Confirm the exact Target Household count in the proposed Franchise Agreement and recalculate revenue using Item 19’s per-TH medians.
- Request Item 19 written substantiation and ask whether the proposed market resembles the 4th-quartile, system-median, or 1st-quartile operator groups.
- Interview several current operators with similar Target Household counts, labor markets, owner involvement, and number of franchise agreements.
- Ask for annual payroll, workers’ compensation, vehicle, fuel, supplies, insurance, recruiting, local marketing, software, call-center, bad-debt, and office-cost percentages.
- Separate owner wages, draws, distributions, retained earnings, interest, depreciation, and debt principal in every profit-and-loss statement reviewed.
- Contact former franchisees and owners of businesses listed as closed, transferred, or ceased in Item 20 to understand failure and exit economics.
What is the decision-useful earnings range?
The strongest defensible range is scenario-based, not official: roughly a $14,000 loss to $106,000 of manager-run pre-tax owner earnings, or approximately $63,000 to $183,000 of owner-operator benefit, for one modeled 45,000-target-household territory. The base estimates are about $32,000 and $109,000, respectively.
The dominant earnings driver is Gross Sales per Target Household, amplified by the territory’s Target Household count. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the true Molly Maid expense structure — especially cleaning-team labor and whether required MAP, local marketing, software, and call-center costs replace or add to ordinary expenses already captured by the IRS benchmark. Before deciding, verify Item 19 substantiation, comparable-territory profit-and-loss statements, and the experience of current and former franchisees listed in Item 20.