How Much Does a Palm Beach Tan Franchise Owner Make?

Annual owner-earnings answer

About $57,000–$123,000 per mature unit

This is an independent estimate of manager-run, pre-tax owner earnings, with a base scenario of about $87,000 a year. The 2026 Palm Beach Tan Franchise Disclosure Document does not report franchised owner profit. It reports franchised revenue and a separate company-owned EBITDA measure, so the range requires a transparent proxy calculation rather than a direct Item 19 earnings claim.

Mode C: FDD-anchored estimate Evidence confidence: Limited 2025 operating period Per mature manager-run unit

Officially, Item 19 measures revenue for mature franchised Sample Locations and EBITDA for a different company-owned population. It does not disclose franchisee net income, owner salary, distributions, or after-tax take-home pay for Palm Beach Tan • Wellness Locations.

For the 12 months ended December 31, 2025, the franchised table reports median Total Revenues of $504,916 and average Total Revenues of $549,415. The locations had an average operating age of 9.88 years, and eight franchised Sample Locations that stopped operating during the reporting period were excluded. Item 19 says approximately 68% of franchised revenue came from electronic-funds-transfer memberships and that reaching a comparable membership mix may take about three to four years. These are important maturity constraints, not minor footnotes. Source: 2026 Palm Beach Tan FDD, Item 19, pp. 57–59.

The company-owned table covers 310 Sample Locations that operated throughout 2025 and averaged 13.1 years in operation. It reports median Total Revenues of $503,288, median EBITDA of $113,624, and a median EBITDA margin of 24.0%. The FDD defines EBITDA as location-level earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. That is a business operating measure, not cash the owner can automatically withdraw. Source: 2026 Palm Beach Tan FDD, Item 19, pp. 53–57.

The range is estimated by applying a transparent revenue and margin sensitivity around the strongest compatible FDD figures. It uses the franchised median revenue as the center, a company-owned EBITDA margin as a proxy, and the mature franchised royalty plus two fixed fees that Item 19 specifically identifies as absent from the company-owned cost base.

The calculation is estimated, not reported: Revenue × company-owned EBITDA proxy margin − 6% royalty − $4,080 of identified annual fixed franchise costs. The $4,080 consists of the $480 Customer Experience Management Program and $3,600 SunLync and Software Support Fee listed in Item 19.

Estimated pre-tax owner earnings

Cash available after normal unit-level operating expenses and the modeled recurring franchise fees, but before personal income taxes, financing principal, capital expenditures, depreciation, and amortization.

Manager-run treatment

Company-owned operating costs include salaries, commissions, and related benefits, so the residual is modeled as if normal location management compensation remains an operating expense.

Advertising treatment

The company-owned expense base includes advertising and promotion. Because its exact ratio is not disclosed, the required 5.5% franchised advertising burden is not subtracted again; doing so could double count the same expense category.

Debt treatment

Interest and principal payments are excluded from the operating estimate. A financed buyer's distributable cash can be materially lower.

• Revenue spread: 80%, 100%, and 120% of the $504,916 franchised median because Item 19 provides no quartile distribution. This spread is analytical, not FDD-reported.
• Margin spread: 21%, 24%, and 27% around the 24.0% company-owned median EBITDA margin. The ±3 percentage-point range is a sensitivity assumption, not an official franchised margin.
• Royalty: 6% assumes a mature unit in month 25 or later. A year-one or year-two unit has a lower royalty rate but usually faces greater ramp-up risk.
• Rounding: Calculations use full-precision inputs and are rounded to the nearest $100 for publication.

Interpretation: The model's width is driven by both sales and operating-margin uncertainty. A $100,000 revenue difference is not a $100,000 owner-income difference because operating costs and percentage fees move with sales.

Source and method: 2026 Palm Beach Tan FDD, Item 19, pp. 53–59; Item 6, pp. 8–13. Scenario calculations are independent and rounded to the nearest $100.

An owner who personally replaces a paid full-time manager could have an estimated owner-operator benefit of roughly $103,000–$170,000. This is not pure business profit: it combines the manager-run residual with the market value of labor performed by the owner.

Item 15 permits an approved Operating Principal or an approved General Manager to run the location, and that person must devote full time and best efforts to the business. The owner-operator illustration therefore assumes the owner is the qualified full-time operating leader rather than an absentee investor. Source: 2026 Palm Beach Tan FDD, Item 15, p. 43.

The labor-value adjustment uses the $46,690 May 2023 national median annual wage for U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation 39-1022, First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers. It is the closest transparent official occupation benchmark used here, but it is older than the FDD performance period, excludes self-employed workers, and will not match every local manager market. See the BLS occupation profile and wage distribution and the current OEWS data tables.

Manager-run residual Owner-operator benefit

Interpretation: Active operation can raise the owner's total economic benefit, but the increase represents compensation for a full-time job. It should not be described as passive income or added again if the unit already pays the owner a salary through operating expenses.

Source and method: Manager-run scenarios above plus the BLS May 2023 national median wage of $46,690 for occupation 39-1022. Local wages, payroll burden, role scope, and the owner's qualifications can materially change the labor value.

The royalty and required advertising commitment are the largest disclosed percentage-based obligations. Item 6 sets royalty at 4% of Gross Sales in months 1–12, 5% in months 13–24, and 6% from month 25 onward. It also requires 2% for the advertising fund and 3.5% for local advertising.

The model directly subtracts the mature 6% royalty because Item 19 identifies royalty as absent from the company-owned cost table. The model does not separately subtract the 5.5% advertising requirement because company-owned operating expenses already include advertising and promotion, but the FDD does not disclose the comparable company percentage. This is a material unresolved comparability issue.

Item 6 also lists technology, recruiting, music, audit, digital-support, and other recurring charges. Item 19 specifically calls out only the Customer Experience Management Program and SunLync/software support as incremental to the company-owned table, so those two are included in the primary calculation. Other charges remain a downside risk where a franchisee's actual expense is not already represented by an analogous company cost. Sources: 2026 Palm Beach Tan FDD, Item 6, pp. 8–13; Item 19, pp. 54–56.

Actual earnings can fall below or above the range because the model bridges two different outlet populations and cannot observe a franchised income statement. The largest unknown is whether a franchised Palm Beach Tan • Wellness Location can sustain the company-owned EBITDA proxy after all local and franchised expenses.

Several specific limitations matter:

• Format transition: Item 19 uses mature Palm Beach Beauty & Tan and Legacy Brand locations, while the 2026 offer is the Palm Beach Tan • Wellness format and the FDD notes a move to a smaller prototype.
• Maturity bias: franchised Sample Locations averaged 9.88 years in operation; company-owned Sample Locations averaged 13.1 years. New locations commonly have lower revenue and higher costs during ramp-up.
• Closed-unit exclusion: eight franchised and ten company-owned Sample Locations that stopped operating during 2025 were excluded from the corresponding Item 19 populations.
• Population inconsistency: the franchised narrative references 324 Sample Locations, while the table is labeled 314. Written substantiation should reconcile the denominator.
• Ownership proxy: company-owned EBITDA may reflect purchasing, staffing, regional supervision, or administrative economics that a single franchisee cannot replicate.
• Advertising comparability: company expenses include advertising, but Item 19 does not disclose the company percentage needed to compare it cleanly with the franchisee's required 5.5% spend.
• Capital intensity: the estimate excludes replacement equipment,remodels, depreciation, and financing. Item 7's initial investment is not an annual operating expense, but debt and future capital spending reduce cash available for distribution.

Item 20 adds another cohort warning. During 2025, franchised outlets declined from 397 to 324 while company-owned outlets increased from 253 to 310; the franchised status table reports 66 reacquisitions by the franchisor. That movement can change the composition of both samples and should be understood before treating one population as a stable proxy for the other. Source: 2026 Palm Beach Tan FDD, Item 20, pp. 59–66.

A buyer should treat $57,000–$123,000 as a diligence range, not a forecast. The most useful next step is to reconcile the model against written Item 19 substantiation, a unit-specific operating budget, and evidence from current and former franchisees with comparable locations.

• Request Item 19 written substantiation and reconcile the 314-versus-324 franchised Sample Location count.
• Ask for revenue and operating-cost evidence by unit age, square footage, market, membership penetration, and Palm Beach Tan • Wellness conversion status.
• Confirm whether all required Item 6 technology, support, recruiting, payment-processing, audit, and advertising charges are included in the proposed location budget.
• Compare manager payroll, benefits, commissions, rent, utilities, repairs, lamp and acrylic replacement, product cost, and card fees with the company-owned expense definitions.
• Interview franchisees whose units resemble the proposed site and ask separately about business profit, owner salary, draws, distributions, debt service, and capital expenditures.
• Model a three-to-four-year membership ramp rather than assuming a new unit immediately reaches the mature sample's EFT revenue mix.
• Review the federal definition and disclosure rules for financial performance representations in 16 CFR Part 436, the FTC Franchise Rule.

The strongest defensible range is approximately $57,000 to $123,000 in annual manager-run, pre-tax owner earnings per mature unit, with a base scenario near $87,000. It is scenario-based, not an official franchised profit result. An active owner who genuinely replaces a full-time manager may have total owner-operator benefit of roughly $103,000 to $170,000, but about $46,690 of that comparison is labor value rather than passive business profit.

The largest earnings driver is the combination of revenue scale and the unit's actual labor-and-occupancy margin. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the transferability of mature company-owned EBITDA to a franchised Palm Beach Tan • Wellness Location after every required expense. A buyer should verify the Item 19 population, obtain substantiation, reconstruct a complete location-level income statement, and test the assumptions with franchisees operating comparable units before using the range in a purchase decision.