How Much Does a NaturaLawn of America Franchise Owner Make?

The most defensible answer is a scenario range, not an official owner-income figure. For one U.S. territory-based mature physical reporting location anchored to the 2025 Item 19 cohort, manager-run pre-tax owner earnings model at about $26,000 in the Conservative scenario, $154,000 in the Base scenario, and $307,000 in the Upside scenario. These figures are before personal income taxes, financing principal, interest, depreciation, amortization, and capital expenditures.

The revenue anchor is the official 2025 median Gross Sales of $1,033,748 for 38 franchised physical locations open at least five years. Because Item 19 provides no franchised sales quartiles, the model applies an explicit analytical spread of 80%, 100%, and 120% of that median. The Gross Profit Margin assumptions use the disclosed 59.3%–67.9% range from six mature company-operated locations as a proxy, not as a franchised-unit result.

Item 19 officially measures 2025 Gross Sales, customer counts, Gross Sales per customer, and company-operated Gross Profit Margin for six mature company-operated locations and 38 mature franchised physical locations. It does not report franchised Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, cash flow, owner compensation, salary, draw, or distributions. The strongest same-brand franchised evidence is therefore revenue—not annual owner earnings.

The franchised cohort contains 38 physical locations that had operated for at least five years during the 12 months ended December 31, 2025. Item 19 reports a median Gross Sales figure of $1,033,748, a low of $231,276, and a high of $18,932,909. The very wide range indicates that location scale is not uniform. Item 19 also reports a median 1,550 customers and median Gross Sales per customer of $733 for the same mature franchised population.

The Base scenario is a derived analytical bridge, not an FDD-reported profit statement. It starts with $1,033,748 of median mature-location Gross Sales, applies a 63.6% company-operated Gross Profit Margin proxy, and then deducts the initial-term 9% Service Fee, 1% Advertising Fee, $70,000 of local marketing, the $102,950 manager wage benchmark, and 22% of revenue for other overhead. The resulting manager-run pre-tax owner earnings are approximately $154,000.

Officially, 2026 FDD Item 15 requires each U.S. territory-based franchised business to remain under the direct on-premises supervision of the owner or an approved manager, and the owner or manager must work full-time and devote full attention and energy to operating the business and supervising employees. In the estimate, owner involvement changes who receives the manager compensation, not the underlying modeled operating economics.

In the manager-run scenarios, the business pays a $102,950 general and operations manager wage based on the BLS May 2024 national median. In the owner-operator scenarios, the same amount is added back as the market value of labor performed by the owner. The resulting figure is labeled owner-operator benefit because it combines residual operating profit with compensation for full-time work.

• Manager-run pre-tax owner earnings: residual operating cash after the modeled paid manager, normal operating expenses, 9% Service Fee, and 1% Advertising Fee, but before personal taxes, all debt service, depreciation, amortization, and capital expenditures. Owner salary, draw, distributions, and retained earnings are not separately assigned; the residual is available before those owner-specific choices.
• Owner-operator benefit: manager-run pre-tax owner earnings plus the $102,950 manager wage value when the owner personally performs that full-time management role.
• Not passive income: Item 15’s full-time supervision requirement means an absentee ownership assumption needs written validation from the franchisor and actual manager-run franchisees.

The one-mature-location estimate has LIMITED evidence confidence because the 2026 FDD does not disclose 2025 franchised operating expenses or owner profit. The most important uncertainty is the amount of overhead between Gross Profit and owner earnings, especially administrative payroll, payroll taxes and benefits, vehicles, facility costs, local marketing, insurance, and management compensation.

• Revenue spread: Conservative, Base, and Upside revenue equal 80%, 100%, and 120% of the $1,033,748 Item 19 median. This spread is analytical, not FDD-reported.
• Gross margin proxy: 59.3%, 63.6%, and 67.9% use the low, midpoint, and high of the company-operated Gross Profit Margin range. Franchised margins could be materially different.
• Other overhead: 24%, 22%, and 20% of revenue cover administrative and office payroll, field-labor payroll burden omitted from Item 19 direct labor, occupancy, fleet, insurance, technology, utilities, professional services, maintenance, and miscellaneous expenses. These percentages are editorial assumptions.
• Marketing: $80,000, $70,000, and $60,000 use the 2026 FDD Item 7 “Initial Annual Advertising and Marketing” range as a planning allowance. Mature-location spending may differ.
• Franchise fees: the model uses the initial-term 9% Service Fee and 1% Advertising Fee. A qualifying renewal may reduce the Service Fee to 7%, while revenue outside the Licensed Territory may carry a 15% Service Fee.
• Manager cost: the $102,950 BLS median is a national wage benchmark. Employer payroll taxes, benefits, bonuses, recruiting costs, and local wage differences are not separately added, so manager-run earnings may be overstated.
• Excluded items: the 5% Ice Melt Fee is not modeled because the share of revenue subject to it is unknown. Financing principal, interest, depreciation, amortization, capital expenditures, and personal income taxes are also excluded and must be analyzed separately.

The Conservative scenario leaves only about $26,000 before the excluded items. A higher manager cost, heavier payroll burden, lower gross margin, extra vehicle expense, Ice Melt Fee exposure, or debt service could reduce that result to zero or a loss. Conversely, a qualifying 7% renewal Service Fee would improve operating cash by roughly two percentage points of applicable Gross Sales, all else equal.

For a U.S. territory-based NaturaLawn purchase, this 2025-cohort range remains an estimated due-diligence framework, and a buyer should replace every editorial assumption with location-specific evidence. The Federal Trade Commission Franchise Rule requires a 23-item disclosure document, but Item 19 results still need to be read with their population, definitions, and limitations.

• Request Item 19 substantiation: confirm the definition of “physical location,” the number of licenses or Licensed Territories represented by each reporting location, and how the unusual high-revenue locations affect the population.
• Interview comparable franchisees: use Item 20 contacts to obtain 2024 and 2025 profit-and-loss statements or line-item ranges for locations of similar age, geography, customer count, and territory structure.
• Separate owner labor from profit: ask manager-run owners what a qualified full-time manager actually costs after wages, payroll taxes, benefits, bonus, vehicle, and recruiting expense.
• Reconcile gross profit: verify chemical and material cost, direct technician labor, payroll burden, administrative labor, fleet, rent, insurance, software, required supplies, and local marketing as percentages of Gross Sales.
• Confirm fee treatment: determine whether the 9% or 7% Service Fee applies, whether any revenue is outside the Licensed Territory, and how much revenue is subject to the 5% Ice Melt Fee.
• Review outlet movement: Item 20 shows franchised outlets declining from 88 to 83 during 2025 and four transfers to new owners. Ask why locations ceased operating or transferred and whether the reporting-location population changed.
• Model financing separately: obtain actual loan amount, interest rate, term, collateral requirements, working-capital line usage, and vehicle financing before estimating cash available for distributions.