That is an independent estimate of owner-operator benefit across the 2026 FDD’s OW 7, OW 10, and OW 25 package volumes—not an OpenWorks earnings claim. At the middle OW 10 package’s full $10,000 monthly account volume, the modeled range is approximately $21,800–$29,000 per year. The estimate combines residual business income with the economic value of work performed by an active owner, before personal income taxes and financing principal payments.
This scenario is not an Item 19 financial performance representation by O.P.E.N. America, Inc. It combines identified facts from the 2026 OpenWorks Franchise Disclosure Document with a broad Internal Revenue Service sole-proprietor benchmark and an explicit margin sensitivity. Actual results can differ materially because of account fulfillment timing, location, package size, sales retained, labor, supplies, insurance, customer loss, financing, owner involvement, and operating execution.
Data basis and evidence status
- Legal franchisor
- O.P.E.N. America, Inc., an Arizona corporation doing business as OpenWorks.
- Disclosure reviewed
- 2026 OpenWorks Franchise Disclosure Document, issued April 9, 2026; Items 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 15, 19, and 20.
- Item 19 status
- No financial performance representation: the FDD reports neither franchisee sales nor owner profit.
- Applicable model
- U.S. commercial janitorial service franchises, generally compatible with home-based operation; package volumes are analyzed separately.
- Benchmark evidence
- IRS tax-year 2023 nonfarm sole proprietorship data for Administrative and Support Services, plus May 2023 BLS wage data for First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers.
- Date checked
- July 16, 2026. The official OpenWorks franchise page confirms that the U.S. franchise offer remains active.
How much may an OpenWorks owner earn annually?
The defensible answer is a package-dependent estimate, not an official earnings figure. At full annualized account volume, the model produces owner-operator benefit of about $15,300–$20,300 for OW 7, $21,800–$29,000 for OW 10, and $54,500–$72,500 for OW 25. These figures apply to the package structure disclosed in the April 2026 FDD and assume the owner is actively performing or managing work.
The calculation uses a 21.175% base net-income ratio derived from 2023 IRS data for the broad Administrative and Support Services sector. Conservative and Upside cases subtract or add three percentage points, producing margins of 18.175% and 24.175%. Amounts are rounded to the nearest $100.
The line shows the Conservative-to-Upside range; the filled marker is the Base scenario.
Interpretation: package scale is the largest visible driver. The OW 25 estimate is not evidence that an owner is likely to achieve $72,500; it is the Upside output at the full disclosed package volume and a 24.175% scenario margin.
Sources: 2026 OpenWorks FDD, Item 5, p. 6; IRS Statistics of Income, 2023 Table 1. Calculations are independent estimates rounded to the nearest $100.
The FDD gives OpenWorks up to 240 days to fulfill OW 7 account volume, 330 days for OW 10, and 780 days for OW 25 after required conditions are met. Therefore, multiplying monthly package volume by 12 describes a stabilized full-volume year—not necessarily the first 12 months after signing.
15% royalty, 2.5% Advertising Fund, and 0.5% Technology and Innovation Fee.
Derived from broad 2023 IRS Administrative and Support Services sole-proprietor data.
May 2023 national median wage for housekeeping and janitorial first-line supervisors.
System count at December 31, 2025, after 77 openings and 89 terminations during 2025.
No company-operated janitorial outlet economics are available as a same-brand proxy.
What does the 2026 OpenWorks FDD actually measure?
Officially, the FDD measures package account volume and fees—not owner earnings. Item 19 states that OpenWorks makes no representation about future franchisee financial performance or past performance of company-owned or franchised outlets. The package information in Item 5 is a contractual operating structure for the current U.S. offer, not an average, median, or historical result.
What is “Initial Monthly Account Volume”?
It is the gross monthly dollar volume of cleaning accounts packaged for the franchise level purchased. In the 2026 FDD, OW 7 is tied to $7,000 per month, OW 10 to $10,000 per month, and OW 25 to $25,000 per month. Annualized mechanically, those values equal $84,000, $120,000, and $300,000. They remain revenue-volume anchors, not profit or owner compensation.
| FDD package | Initial monthly account volume | Annualized full-volume anchor | FDD fulfillment period |
|---|---|---|---|
| OW 7 | $7,000 | $84,000 | 240 days |
| OW 10 | $10,000 | $120,000 | 330 days |
| OW 25 | $25,000 | $300,000 | 780 days |
OW P and OW GrOW have zero initial monthly account volume in the Item 5 package table, so no responsible owner-earnings estimate can be produced for those formats without a separately verified revenue assumption.
Gross Revenue is defined in Item 6 as the total amount customers pay for services, without reductions for taxes or other purposes. The owner still must absorb franchise fees and normal operating costs such as cleaning labor, payroll burden, supplies, insurance, travel, technology, accounting, and account-level service failures.
How much revenue remains after current OpenWorks percentage fees?
Official FDD fees claim 18% of Gross Revenue before ordinary operating expenses, using the rates stated as currently collected in April 2026. That leaves 82% before cleaning labor, supplies, insurance, transportation, administrative costs, financing, and owner compensation. The remaining amount is not profit.
Each bar reconciles the annualized package volume into current core FDD fees and revenue remaining before other operating costs.
Interpretation: the fee bridge is exact under the current stated percentages, but it stops before the expenses that usually determine whether the owner retains a meaningful benefit.
Source: 2026 OpenWorks FDD, Item 6, pp. 8–12. Insurance through the OpenWorks-sponsored program, if applicable, is separate and currently listed at 3.6% of Gross Revenue; workers’ compensation varies by state.
- Core recurring fees: the model recognizes the current 18% revenue charge disclosed in Item 6, but does not subtract it again from the IRS all-in net-income ratio. The Advertising Fund may rise to 3% and the Technology and Innovation Fee to 2%, increasing the combined core charge by as much as two percentage points under the disclosed caps.
- Insurance: a franchisee enrolled in the OpenWorks general-liability program may face an additional current charge of 3.6% of Gross Revenue; external insurance costs can differ.
- Special projects: the FDD permits a 0%, 15%, or 30% fee depending on who obtains and prices the job. No special-project revenue is included in the estimate.
- Additional accounts: a marketing fee equal to three times one month’s billing may apply to new or increased accounts. That acquisition cost is not treated as a recurring annual operating expense.
How does owner involvement change OpenWorks earnings?
Active owner operation can be the difference between a positive owner benefit and a manager-run loss at smaller package volumes. This is an estimated role comparison, not an official OpenWorks result. Item 15 requires the owner or a designated manager to use best efforts full time in daily operation, so this is not structured as passive ownership.
The Base owner-operator scenario uses the 21.175% IRS ratio. The manager-run illustration subtracts the May 2023 BLS national median annual wage of $46,650 for First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers. It does not add employer payroll taxes, benefits, recruiting cost, or coverage for absences, so the manager-run residual is optimistic.
The gap represents one full-time manager wage proxy; negative values mean the package-level benefit does not cover that wage.
Interpretation: an OW 7 or OW 10 operator should not assume that hiring a full-time manager leaves passive profit. At the OW 25 Base case, the modeled residual is only about $16,900 before manager payroll burden, debt principal, and personal taxes.
Sources: 2026 OpenWorks FDD, Item 15, p. 35; BLS May 2023 occupational wage estimates; independent calculations.
“Owner-operator benefit” is not pure business profit. It can include both residual operating income and compensation for the owner’s labor. A buyer comparing this figure with a salaried job should also account for working hours, payroll-tax treatment, health insurance, retirement benefits, and the risk that the business underperforms.
How reliable is the earnings range?
Confidence is Limited because no same-brand sales, expense, profit, or owner-compensation population is disclosed. The 2026 FDD supplies strong structural facts—package volume, fees, operating obligations, and outlet counts—but the central margin comes from a broad 2023 government sector benchmark rather than OpenWorks franchisees or janitorial firms alone.
What does the IRS benchmark include?
The benchmark is derived, broad, and owner-operator oriented. IRS Statistics of Income Table 1 reports $114.423 billion of business receipts and $24.229 billion of net income less deficit for 3,118,914 nonfarm sole-proprietor returns in Administrative and Support Services for tax year 2023. Dividing net income by receipts gives 21.175%.
This sector is directionally relevant because janitorial services fall within administrative and support services, but it also contains many non-janitorial businesses. Schedule C net income can include the return to an owner’s labor, and the IRS table does not isolate OpenWorks royalties, package size, franchise status, maturity, debt structure, manager pay, or geographic market.
| Scenario | Applied margin | Evidence treatment | Main interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 18.175% | IRS ratio minus 3 percentage points | Lower analytical sensitivity; not an observed OpenWorks percentile. |
| Base | 21.175% | 2023 IRS net income ÷ business receipts | Broad sole-proprietor proxy, not a forecast or most-likely result. |
| Upside | 24.175% | IRS ratio plus 3 percentage points | Upper analytical sensitivity; not a franchisor-reported outcome. |
- Revenue anchor: full annualized Initial Monthly Account Volume for OW 7, OW 10, or OW 25; no revenue is estimated for zero-volume OW P or OW GrOW.
- Operating-expense treatment: the IRS net-income ratio is used as an all-in proxy. FDD fees are shown separately for transparency but are not deducted twice.
- Owner compensation: not separately deducted in the owner-operator scenario; the result is therefore labeled benefit rather than passive profit.
- Interest and depreciation: not separately reconstructed because the IRS sector table does not provide an OpenWorks-compatible bridge for those items.
- Capital expenditures: equipment replacement and future technology upgrades are not modeled separately.
- Debt service: financing principal is excluded from operating earnings. Item 10 discloses certain OpenWorks financing at 12% annually, so actual cash available can be lower.
- Taxes: no personal income-tax or after-tax take-home estimate is provided.
Item 20 shows 402 franchised outlets at year-end 2025, but Item 19 supplies no reporting sample from those outlets. The FDD also reports 89 terminations and 77 openings in 2025, so buyers should investigate account retention, termination causes, and mature-owner economics rather than treating the surviving outlet count as evidence of earnings.
What should a prospective owner verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should replace broad assumptions with written, package-specific evidence from OpenWorks and actual franchisee records. The following checks address the largest unresolved uncertainty: how much full-volume revenue an owner retains after labor and account-level operating costs.
- Ask OpenWorks to confirm in writing that Item 19 contains no financial performance representation and request any permitted written substantiation for projections discussed during the sales process.
- Interview current and former franchisees from Item 20, separating OW 7, OW 10, OW 25, mature accounts, newly fulfilled accounts, owner-operated businesses, and manager-run businesses.
- Request actual monthly statements showing Gross Revenue, royalty, Advertising Fund, Technology and Innovation Fee, insurance deductions, special-project fees, advances, and other deductions.
- Measure direct cleaning labor, payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, supplies, travel time, quality-control labor, customer credits, and rework as percentages of revenue.
- Confirm the expected fulfillment schedule in the buyer’s market and model a partial-volume first year rather than assuming 12 months at full package volume.
- Ask how many accounts were replaced, lost, reduced, or declined, and whether the owner had to purchase overage or additional volume.
- Separate the owner’s working compensation from residual profit, then test the economics with a market manager wage plus payroll burden.
- Review financing principal and interest independently; do not treat the estimated operating benefit as cash available after debt service.
The Federal Trade Commission Franchise Rule Compliance Guide explains the regulatory framework for financial performance representations. Government benchmark context is available through the IRS nonfarm sole-proprietorship statistics, the IRS 2023 Table 1 workbook, and the U.S. Census Bureau NAICS reference.
What is the most defensible takeaway?
The strongest defensible annual range is approximately $15,300–$72,500 in estimated owner-operator benefit across the OW 7, OW 10, and OW 25 full-volume package anchors; the OW 10 reference range is $21,800–$29,000. It is a Mode D structural scenario, not an official OpenWorks earnings disclosure. The dominant earnings driver is package revenue scale combined with owner labor. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the actual labor-and-operating-cost ratio for comparable, mature OpenWorks franchisees. Before investing, a buyer should verify Item 19’s absence of performance data, request written substantiation for any sales discussion, and reconcile franchisee interviews to actual monthly statements by package and owner role.