Estimated manager-run pre-tax owner earnings per existing U.S. retail shipping and business center. An actively working owner could receive an estimated $95,000–$192,000 owner-operator benefit, but that larger figure includes the market value of the owner’s labor. These are whole-center scenarios, not an estimate of the incremental earnings created by adopting the PackageHub brand.
This range is an independent analytical scenario. It is not an Item 19 financial performance representation by PBC, LLC. The model combines identified facts from the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with separately identified U.S. Census Bureau, Internal Revenue Service, and Bureau of Labor Statistics benchmarks. Actual results can differ materially because of location, service mix, carrier economics, sales volume, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Legal franchisor: PBC, LLC, a Texas limited liability company and successor to the former Delaware PBC, LLC. Offer: a PackageHub Business Centers affiliation for an independently owned retail shipping and business center that is already operating or under development. Item 19 status: no sales, profit, owner compensation, or other financial performance representation. Population anchors: 1,244 franchised outlets at year-end 2025 and no company-owned outlets. External proxies: NAICS 561431 Private Mail Centers, 2023 IRS Administrative and Support Services sole proprietorships, and a 2025 retail-manager wage. Date checked: July 21, 2026.
FDD citations: 2026 FDD, Item 1, pp. 1–2; Items 5–7, pp. 3–8; Item 15, p. 16; Item 19, pp. 20–21; Item 20, pp. 21–29. No matching public FDD on a franchise-controlled website was verified, so the FDD citations are intentionally unlinked.
The 2026 Item 19 states that PBC, LLC does not make representations about future financial performance or the past performance of franchised or company-owned outlets. The franchisor therefore supplies no official revenue distribution, margin, or owner-income number.
The estimate depends materially on official external industry and tax benchmarks rather than same-brand operating results. The largest uncertainty is whether those broad benchmarks resemble a specific PackageHub-affiliated center’s service mix, staffing, occupancy, and carrier terms.
No sales or earnings representation appears in the 2026 FDD.
U.S. system count at December 31, 2025; zero company-owned outlets.
$1,200 PBC fee plus $330 annual RSA Premium membership.
2022 private-mail-center revenue divided by 2023 employer establishments.
2023 IRS Administrative and Support Services net income divided by receipts.
2025 BLS median for first-line retail sales supervisors/managers in Retail Trade.
What does the 2026 FDD actually say about owner earnings?
Official answer: it does not disclose owner earnings, sales, profit, EBITDA, cash flow, or owner compensation. Item 19 covers the current PackageHub Business Centers offer for independently owned U.S. retail shipping and business centers, but it makes no financial performance representation for any outlet cohort or reporting period.
That absence matters because revenue cannot be inferred from the system’s outlet count, and owner earnings cannot be inferred from the low fixed franchise fee. The Federal Trade Commission’s franchise buyer guidance explains that Item 19 is where a franchisor’s sales or earnings claims must appear and warns that gross sales do not establish profit after expenses.
The business format also changes the interpretation. The FDD requires a prospective franchisee to own a retail shipping and business center that is operating or under development. The official PackageHub overview describes the format as a non-traditional model intended to preserve local entrepreneurs’ independence. Consequently, a modeled annual result describes the economics of the entire existing center; it cannot isolate how much earnings are caused by PackageHub affiliation.
A shipping center may collect substantial customer receipts while retaining a much smaller amount after carrier charges, merchandise and packaging costs, payroll, rent, insurance, technology, utilities, card fees, and other operating costs. The model below therefore starts with a revenue proxy, applies a separate net-income proxy, and then adjusts for PackageHub-specific recurring fees and owner involvement.
Item 20 provides system structure rather than unit economics. Franchised outlets increased from 1,156 at the start of 2025 to 1,244 at year-end, with 197 openings, 23 terminations, 18 non-renewals, 68 outlets ceasing operations for other reasons, and 48 transfers during 2025. There were no company-owned outlets, so no company-store profit proxy exists. Those counts help define the population but do not measure annual owner income.
How was the annual owner-earnings range estimated?
The estimate uses a three-step structural model for one existing U.S. shipping and business center. It is scenario-based, not franchisor-reported: an industry revenue proxy is combined with a broad tax-return net-income margin, then PackageHub recurring fees and a manager wage are applied according to the owner’s role.
Estimated manager-run owner earnings = owner-operator benefit − $48,220 replacement-manager wage
- Central revenue: $5.067 billion of 2022 U.S. Private Mail Centers employer-firm revenue, reported by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Service Annual Survey and displayed by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, divided by 7,614 employer establishments in the 2023 Census NAICS 561431 profile. The resulting $665,485 cross-year proxy is rounded to $665,000 for publication.
- Revenue spread: Conservative, Base, and Upside revenue equal 80%, 100%, and 120% of the central proxy. This spread is an editorial sensitivity assumption, not an FDD-reported distribution.
- Central margin: 2023 IRS Schedule C data for Administrative and Support Services show $24.229 billion of net income less deficit on $114.423 billion of business receipts, or 21.2%. The IRS Nonfarm Sole Proprietorship Statistics are broader than private mail centers and include owner labor within sole-proprietor net income.
- Margin spread: the scenarios use 18.2%, 21.2%, and 24.2%, or three percentage points below, at, and above the central IRS proxy. These are analytical sensitivities, not probabilities or franchisor projections.
- Manager wage: $48,220 is the 2025 median annual wage for first-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers in BLS Retail Trade data. Benefits, payroll taxes, bonuses, and local wage premiums are not added, so a fully loaded manager cost could be higher.
| Scenario | Revenue proxy | Net-income margin | Owner-operator benefit | Manager-run earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $532,000 | 18.2% | $95,000 | $47,000 |
| Base | $665,000 | 21.2% | $139,000 | $91,000 |
| Upside | $799,000 | 24.2% | $192,000 | $143,000 |
Calculations use unrounded inputs and are rounded to the nearest $1,000 for presentation. “Owner-operator benefit” includes both residual business income and the value of management labor performed by the owner. “Manager-run earnings” are before personal income taxes and financing principal payments.
Three independent scenarios for one existing shipping and business center
Interpretation: the range is wide because both revenue and margin are uncertain; the $91,000 base scenario is a modeling midpoint, not a forecast. Sources: 2026 FDD Items 5, 6, 15, and 19; U.S. Census Bureau Service Annual Survey and County Business Patterns; IRS 2023 Table 1; BLS 2025 Retail Trade wages. Values rounded to the nearest $1,000.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Active owner operation increases the modeled annual benefit by about $48,000 because the owner replaces a paid manager. This is an estimated labor-value effect for one existing center, not extra passive business profit. The 2026 FDD permits a manager-run arrangement because the owner is not required to participate personally, but every center must have a qualified Designated Manager.
The distance between markers is the $48,220 replacement-manager wage assumption
Interpretation: an active owner may capture the modeled manager wage as labor value, but that amount compensates the owner for day-to-day work; a manager-run center may also incur payroll taxes, benefits, bonuses, or local wage premiums not included here. Sources: 2026 FDD Item 15, p. 16; BLS 2025 Retail Trade wage data; scenario calculations shown above.
The owner-operator number should not be compared directly with a passive investment return. It combines two economic components: residual operating income and compensation for management labor. The manager-run figure is the cleaner proxy for pre-tax ownership income after paying a market wage, although the wage assumption does not include a full benefits and payroll burden.
Which recurring franchise fees are included in the estimate?
The model deducts $1,530 per year of specifically disclosed recurring PackageHub and RSA fees. This is an official FDD amount for the 2026 offer, assuming the RSA Premium Membership is paid annually; it is not a complete list of the center’s ordinary operating costs, which are represented through the external net-income margin.
| Recurring obligation | FDD amount | Modeled annual amount | Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| PBC Monthly Franchise Fee | $100/month | $1,200 | Subtracted after the industry margin. |
| RSA Premium Membership | $30/month or $330/year | $330 | Annual-payment option used; monthly payment would add $30 per year. |
| Percentage royalty | None disclosed | $0 | No percentage-of-sales royalty appears in Item 6. |
| Mandatory advertising fund | None disclosed | $0 | No recurring required advertising contribution appears in Item 6. |
The FDD allows the franchisor to increase the Monthly Franchise Fee with 30 days’ prior notice. Insurance, required systems, vendor charges, training when required, non-compliance fees, and ordinary store expenses vary and are not added as separate fixed amounts unless already reflected in the benchmark margin.
What variables move PackageHub owner earnings the most?
Revenue, operating margin, and paid management are the dominant drivers. In the base manager-run scenario for one existing center, a 10% revenue change moves modeled annual earnings by about $14,000, while a two-percentage-point margin change moves earnings by about $13,000. These are derived sensitivities, not official PackageHub results.
| Base-case sensitivity | Lower input | Base input | Higher input |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue at base 21.2% margin | $77,000 at −10% | $91,000 | $105,000 at +10% |
| Margin at base $665,000 revenue | $78,000 at 19.2% | $91,000 at 21.2% | $104,000 at 23.2% |
| Owner role | $91,000 manager-run | $48,220 labor gap | $139,000 owner-operator |
- Service mix: carrier shipments, packing, mailbox rental, printing, notary, supplies, freight, and other services can carry materially different gross margins. The official PackageHub U.S. website lists a broad service menu and notes that services, pricing, and operating hours vary by independently owned location.
- Carrier and vendor economics: negotiated rates, customer pricing, dimensional weight, claims, and packaging costs can change the amount retained from each transaction.
- Occupancy and staffing: rent, local wages, hours, and the number of employees can overwhelm the relatively small fixed franchise fee difference.
- Owner involvement: replacing a manager can increase total owner benefit, but it converts paid management labor into the owner’s job rather than creating passive profit.
What does this earnings estimate not measure?
The scenario does not establish the earnings of a typical PackageHub franchisee or the incremental value of the affiliation. It applies to a modeled whole-center annual period and relies on populations that differ from the actual PBC franchise system.
- No same-brand revenue distribution: Item 19 provides no average, median, quartile, range, sample size, or percentage achieving a stated sales or profit result.
- No before-and-after evidence: the FDD does not disclose a center’s economics before joining PackageHub and after conversion, so the model cannot attribute revenue or profit changes to the franchise.
- Benchmark mismatch: Census NAICS 561431 covers employer private mail centers, while the IRS margin covers the broader Administrative and Support Services sector and Schedule C sole proprietors. Neither population is a verified sample of PackageHub franchisees.
- Cross-year revenue proxy: the central revenue estimate divides 2022 industry revenue by a 2023 establishment count because a same-year, same-definition per-establishment figure was not available in the selected official sources.
- Debt service: financing principal payments are excluded. Interest and depreciation may be embedded in the broad IRS net-income measure, but the model does not reconstruct them separately.
- Taxes and capital needs: personal income taxes, owner-specific entity treatment, working-capital changes, equipment replacement, and discretionary capital expenditures are not estimated.
The Census Service Annual Survey methodology describes a national sample-based program for employer firms, and the IRS table aggregates millions of sole proprietorship returns across a broad sector. Official methodology improves source quality, but it does not solve comparability. The resulting range should be treated as a screening model that requires location-specific validation.
What should a buyer verify before relying on any earnings range?
A buyer should replace each external proxy with actual records from comparable PackageHub centers whenever possible. The verification should cover the current FDD period, the same existing-center format, and the intended owner-operated or manager-run structure.
- Ask for the latest Item 19 and amendments: confirm whether a newer FDD adds a financial performance representation, changes recurring fees, or changes the outlet population.
- Request written substantiation: if any seller makes a sales, income, or profit statement, ask for the written basis and compare it with Item 19. FTC guidance says an Item 19 claim must have a reasonable basis and disclose material assumptions and limitations.
- Interview comparable franchisees: use Item 20 contact lists to speak with active, transferred, and former owners operating similar store sizes, markets, service mixes, and staffing models.
- Separate center economics from affiliation effects: request historical profit-and-loss statements for periods before and after PackageHub adoption, with consistent accounting classifications.
- Rebuild manager cost locally: include salary, employer payroll taxes, benefits, bonuses, overtime, and coverage for absences rather than relying only on the national BLS median.
- Normalize the profit-and-loss statement: identify owner wages, related-party rent, depreciation, interest, one-time expenses, capital expenditures, and retained working capital before calling any amount “owner earnings.”
What is the strongest defensible earnings takeaway?
A reasonable screening range is approximately $47,000 to $143,000 of annual manager-run pre-tax owner earnings per existing center, with an estimated $95,000 to $192,000 owner-operator benefit when the owner replaces a paid manager. Both ranges are independent Mode D scenarios, not official PackageHub financial performance results.
The most important driver is the center’s retained operating margin on its local service mix, followed by revenue and manager cost. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand unit-level sales and expense data—and, because this is an existing-center affiliation, the absence of evidence separating total center earnings from the incremental effect of PackageHub participation.
A buyer should therefore verify the current Item 19, request written substantiation for any earnings statement, and obtain comparable franchisee profit-and-loss records through Item 20 interviews. The decision should be based on locally normalized records, not the scenario midpoint.
Related Blogs
- What Are Some Alternatives to PackageHub Business Centers Franchise?
- How Does the PackageHub Business Centers Franchise Work?
- How to Start a PackageHub Business Centers Franchise in 7 Steps: Checklist
- How Does the PackageHub Business Centers Franchise Work?
- What Are the Pros and Cons of Owning a PackageHub Business Centers Franchise?