A U.S. Neat Method owner may generate roughly a $2,500 operating loss to $54,000 in annual estimated owner-operator benefit across the three scenarios modeled here, with a base result of about $9,100. This is a 2026 FDD-anchored estimate for one home-based territory—not an official profit disclosure. A manager-run structure is materially weaker in this model, ranging from about −$47,600 to $8,900 after an illustrative full-time supervisor wage.
The earnings figures are independent analytical scenarios, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by NM Franchise Operations, LLC. They combine identified 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document facts with an Internal Revenue Service industry benchmark, a Bureau of Labor Statistics wage benchmark, and explicit sensitivity assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by territory tier, service pricing, organizer labor, product economics, sales mix, local marketing, owner involvement, financing, and execution.
- Legal franchisor
- NM Franchise Operations, LLC
- Current disclosure
- 2026 U.S. FDD, issued April 20, 2026
- Item 19 status
- Official Gross Revenue only; no franchisee profit or owner compensation
- Reporting population
- 86 continuously operating franchised outlets; no company-owned outlets
- External benchmarks
- IRS Tax Year 2022 Schedule C data and BLS May 2023 wages
- Date checked
- July 14, 2026
Evidence confidence is Limited because Item 19 reports revenue without unit-level expenses or owner compensation, so the result relies materially on broad IRS and BLS benchmarks. The brand is currently presenting U.S. franchise information on the official Neat Method franchise website. The matching FDD is cited in plain text by Item and page because no matching official-site public FDD link was verified.
Median 2025 Gross Revenue
All 86 continuously operating franchised outlets; revenue, not owner earnings.
Base owner-operator benefit
Pre-tax, before financing principal and personal income taxes; rounded to $100.
Item 19 outlet coverage
About 92% of outlets operating at year-end 2025 were in the continuous-operation set.
Royalty schedule
Applied to Service Revenue according to territory tier and prior-quarter performance.
Modeled annual fixed fees
$250 monthly technology plus $40 monthly education/events for a single-owner market.
Supervisor wage proxy
BLS May 2023 mean wage in Other Personal Services; excludes benefits and payroll burden.
What does the 2026 Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially measures 2025 Gross Revenue, not business profit or owner take-home pay. The population is 86 franchised outlets that operated continuously from January 1 through December 31, 2025. Seven outlets that opened or transferred during the year were excluded, and the system had no company-owned outlets. Source: 2026 Neat Method Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 29–30.
The FDD defines Gross Revenue as Service Revenue plus earned NEAT Method product commission revenue. It excludes other product commissions and third-party referral fees, which may provide additional revenue but have no disclosed systemwide amount or margin. The all-outlet average was $172,668, the median was $146,274, and the maximum was $703,418. Only 34 outlets, or 40%, met or exceeded the average, illustrating why the median is the better central revenue anchor.
The $146,274 median and $703,418 maximum are sales measures before organizer wages, insurance, travel, supplies, local marketing, royalties, technology, education fees, and other operating costs. The FTC franchise buyer guidance specifically cautions that gross sales do not reveal an outlet’s actual costs or profit.
| Territory tier | Reporting outlets | Median Gross Revenue | Official range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 15 | $192,442 | $43,961–$507,962 |
| Tier 2 | 27 | $189,083 | $31,307–$703,418 |
| Tier 3 | 29 | $113,368 | $7,811–$378,511 |
| Tier 4 | 15 | $93,403 | $27,242–$262,030 |
Official 2025 Gross Revenue by territory tier. Tier designations reflect population and revenue potential; Tier 1 is positioned for the highest organizer rates and Tier 4 for the lowest. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 1, p. 29.
Business age also matters. The five first-12-month outlets reported a $68,160 median and $99,330 average, while the 27 outlets in years 7–12 reported a $192,809 median and $253,118 average. Those age cohorts are small and descriptive rather than forecasts, but they show that a mature territory should not be modeled as if it were a first-year business.
How is the owner-earnings range calculated?
The range is estimated by combining FDD revenue medians with a broad official industry net-income benchmark, then deducting Neat Method recurring fees. The Conservative, Base, and Upside labels are analytical scenarios, not probabilities or franchisor projections.
- Revenue anchors: $62,337 bottom-quartile median, $146,274 all-outlet median, and $309,033 top-quartile median from the 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 2, p. 30.
- Industry benchmark: IRS Tax Year 2022 Personal and laundry services reported $23.070 billion of net income less deficit on $90.249 billion of business receipts, a 25.56% aggregate margin. The scenario band uses 22.56%, 25.56%, and 28.56%, a transparent ±3 percentage-point sensitivity.
- NAICS fit: The 2022 U.S. NAICS Manual places personal organizer services in NAICS 812990, All Other Personal Services. The IRS benchmark is published only at the broader Personal and laundry services level, so it is directionally relevant but not brand-specific.
- Royalty proxy: 20.0%, 15.98%, and 8.98% were calculated from the FDD’s Tier 1–4 royalty thresholds and the 86-outlet tier mix. The calculation assumes annual revenue is evenly distributed across four quarters and uses the full-system tier mix because quartile tier composition is not disclosed. An individual franchisee pays a disclosed discrete rate, not the population-weighted 15.98% or 8.98% proxy.
- Benchmark treatment: The IRS table does not isolate franchise fees. Treating its 25.56% margin as a pre-Neat benchmark and then subtracting Neat Method fees may partially double-count fees paid by any franchised businesses in the IRS sample; the amount cannot be quantified.
- Rounding and period: Full-precision inputs were used and final earnings were rounded to the nearest $100. Revenue is annual 2025 data; IRS data are Tax Year 2022, published in 2025.
Estimated annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit after modeled recurring franchise fees.
Interpretation: the FDD’s wide revenue distribution is amplified by the declining royalty schedule. Even the upside result is an owner-labor-inclusive benefit, not passive profit.
Sources: 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 5–9, and Item 19, pp. 29–30; IRS Sole Proprietorship Returns, Tax Year 2022, Table 1. Calculations are independent scenarios.
What is included—and what is not?
The scenario estimates pre-tax cash benefit before buyer-specific debt principal and personal income taxes. The IRS Schedule C benchmark includes aggregate operating deductions, depreciation, business interest, employee payroll, and home-office expenses, but it does not deduct a sole proprietor’s salary. Accordingly, the owner-operator result includes both residual business economics and compensation for the owner’s work.
- Owner compensation
- Not deducted in the IRS sole-proprietor benchmark; embedded as owner-operator labor value.
- Manager compensation
- Subtracted separately only in the manager-run sensitivity below.
- Interest and depreciation
- Embedded at an aggregate industry level, not modeled from a Neat Method unit’s actual books.
- Capital expenditures
- No annual replacement-capex schedule is disclosed or modeled.
- Startup investment
- The Item 7 estimate of $37,500–$44,500 is a startup investment, not an annual operating expense, and is not subtracted from one year of revenue. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 7, p. 10.
- Debt service
- No acquisition loan is assumed. Principal payments are excluded; buyer-specific interest may differ from the IRS aggregate.
- Personal taxes
- Excluded. Entity structure, state, deductions, and owner circumstances determine after-tax outcomes.
How much does active owner operation matter?
Active ownership changes the modeled result by about $45,080 a year because the FDD requires full-time day-to-day supervision by the owner or an approved trained manager. The owner-operator figure is therefore not passive profit; it includes the economic value of management labor. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 15, pp. 23–24.
Illustrative annual pre-tax result after subtracting a $45,080 supervisor wage from each owner-operator scenario.
Interpretation: a manager-run model does not clear the wage proxy until the Upside revenue-and-margin scenario, and even then leaves only about $8,900 before debt principal and personal taxes.
Wage source: BLS May 2023 First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers, Other Personal Services industry mean annual wage. BLS excludes self-employed workers; the figure excludes employer payroll taxes and benefits. The IRS benchmark already contains mixed-business payroll, so this is a role sensitivity, not a same-brand manager-cost disclosure.
The model’s $45,080 gap is compensation for work performed, not a free increase in enterprise profit. A buyer comparing Neat Method with a salaried job should separate labor compensation from residual return on ownership. The FDD’s full-time supervision requirement also means the opportunity should not be evaluated as passive income.
Which fees and unknowns can move the result most?
Organizer labor and the exact Service Revenue mix are the largest unresolved earnings variables. The FDD supplies a detailedroyalty schedule but no unit-level labor, insurance, travel, supplies, local marketing, product cost, operating profit, or owner compensation data. That is why the confidence rating remains Limited.
- Royalty Fee
- 8% to 20% of Service Revenue, determined quarterly by territory tier and performance. Beginning in month 13, the minimum is $500 per month. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 5–9.
- Advertising Fund
- Modeled at the current 1% of monthly Gross Revenue. The FDD permits an increase to 3%, which would reduce annual benefit by another 2% of revenue if imposed.
- Technology and education
- Modeled at $3,480 annually for a single-owner market. The FDD permits each fee to increase by up to 25% per year.
- Local and operating costs
- Embedded only through the broad IRS margin proxy; actual organizer payroll, workers’ compensation, insurance, travel, local advertising, software, and professional fees may differ substantially.
- Required product purchases
- Item 8 requires a minimum annual NEAT Method product purchase measured by the lesser of two formulas. It is not separately deducted because the FDD does not disclose client reimbursement, product gross margin, or inventory timing.
- Other commissions
- Third-party product commissions and referral fees are excluded from Item 19 Gross Revenue and from the scenarios. They could add revenue, but their amount and related costs are unknown.
The FDD permits a Royalty Surcharge when annual Service Revenue is below $50,000 beginning in year two or below $100,000 beginning in year three. It is not included because the surcharge is discretionary and Item 19 does not disclose Service Revenue separately. As an illustration only, if year-three Service Revenue equaled the $62,337 Conservative Gross Revenue anchor and a 20% rate applied, a surcharge to the $100,000 threshold could be about $7,500, lowering that scenario from roughly −$2,500 to −$10,000.
Item 20 adds population context. The system moved from 94 to 93 franchised outlets during 2025: seven opened, one was not renewed, and seven ceased operations for other reasons. Those opening and closure outcomes are not profit measures, but they reinforce the need to interview both continuing and departed franchisees. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 20, pp. 31–36.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should replace every broad benchmark with territory-specific unit records before underwriting personal income. The 2026 Item 19 provides a credible revenue distribution, but only franchisee interviews and written substantiation can establish actual organizer labor, client acquisition cost, service mix, owner hours, and cash retained after recurring fees.
- Request Item 19 written substantiation. Reconcile the 86-outlet reporting set, tier assignments, quartile calculations, business-age cohorts, and treatment of transfers.
- Ask for Service Revenue versus product commission revenue. The royalty is based on Service Revenue, while Item 19 reports a broader Gross Revenue measure.
- Interview owners in the same tier and age cohort. Ask for 2025 revenue, organizer payroll, owner hours, insurance, travel, local marketing, product purchases, and pre-tax cash distributions.
- Compare owner-operated and manager-run books. Confirm whether a full-time manager is feasible at the territory’s actual revenue and include payroll taxes, benefits, recruiting, and turnover.
- Test fee changes and surcharges. Model a 3% Advertising Fund Contribution, annual technology/education increases, and the Item 6 minimum royalty and surcharge provisions.
- Review departed outlets in Item 20. Ask why they ceased operating and whether revenue, labor availability, owner workload, territory economics, or personal circumstances drove the exit.
- Build a buyer-specific debt schedule. Item 10 states that the franchisor does not offer financing; any third-party loan should be modeled separately from operating earnings and before owner cash withdrawals.
What is the strongest defensible annual earnings view?
The strongest defensible range is approximately a $2,500 operating loss to $54,000 in estimated annual owner-operator benefit, with a $9,100 Base scenario. It is scenario-based, not official, because Neat Method Item 19 reports Gross Revenue without unit-level expenses or owner compensation. The most important driver is the combination of sales volume and owner-provided management labor; the largest unresolved uncertainty is the actual organizer-labor and operating-cost structure for a comparable territory.
A manager-run structure appears difficult at the disclosed median revenue under these assumptions: the Base residual is about −$36,000 after the BLS wage proxy. A buyer should verify the FDD’s Item 19 substantiation, obtain same-tier franchisee profit-and-loss statements where owners are willing to share them, and separate owner labor, business residual, debt service, and personal taxes before setting an income target.