For one Planet Fitness franchised club that operated for the full 2025 calendar year, the strongest defensible manager-run estimate is approximately $326,000 in a conservative scenario, $707,000 in a base scenario, and $1.10 million in an upside scenario. These are EBITDA-style, pre-interest and pre-tax owner-earnings proxies after operating payroll and rent, but before debt service, personal taxes, depreciation, amortization, and future capital expenditures.
What does the Planet Fitness FDD actually measure?
Officially, Item 19 measures Annual EFT Revenue, not owner earnings, for franchised clubs that operated throughout 2025. Annual EFT Revenue consists of recurring monthly and annual membership fees billed through electronic funds transfer. It excludes paid-in-full memberships, retail and other revenue, returns, and taxes.
| Official franchised-club measure | Bottom third | Middle third | Upper third |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clubs | 764 | 764 | 763 |
| Average Annual EFT Revenue | $1,260,539 | $1,873,231 | $2,705,811 |
| Median Annual EFT Revenue | $1,311,575 | $1,863,300 | $2,595,549 |
| Disclosed low-high range | $429,581-$1,596,261 | $1,597,497-$2,170,135 | $2,171,673-$5,271,381 |
| Clubs meeting or exceeding the third's average | 437 / 764 (57%) | 370 / 764 (48%) | 296 / 763 (39%) |
- Annual EFT Revenue
- The FDD's recurring monthly and annual membership billing measure. It is revenue, not cash profit or owner compensation.
- EBITDA-style owner earnings proxy
- Estimated unit-level residual after the operating costs included in the company-operated Item 19 table, including payroll, rent, royalty, and marketing, but before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, debt service, and future capital expenditures.
- Owner-operator benefit
- Manager-run residual plus the wage value of a management role actually performed by the owner. The labor component is compensation for work, not passive business profit.
- After-tax take-home pay
- Not estimated. It depends on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, financing, and the owner's personal tax circumstances.
How representative is the Item 19 population?
The revenue table has broad coverage but represents established, full-year clubs rather than every 2025 outlet experience. It covers 2,291 of the 2,432 franchised clubs open at year-end, or 94.2%. The FDD excluded 133 clubs opened after January 1, 2025, eight clubs sold to franchisees in August 2025, and seven clubs that closed during 2025. Included clubs opened from 2003 through 2024.
Item 20 reports that U.S. franchised outlets increased from 2,298 to 2,432 during 2025, with 141 openings and seven terminations. That growth does not remove ramp-up risk: a new club's first-year revenue and cost structure may differ substantially from the full-year cohort.
How is the annual owner-earnings range calculated?
The estimate applies a same-tier company-operated EBITDA-to-EFT ratio to each franchised median EFT Revenue figure. This is a derived calculation using 2025 figures in the 2026 FDD. It is not a franchisor-reported franchisee profit result.
| Scenario and FDD anchor | Franchised median EFT Revenue | Corporate EBITDA-to-EFT proxy | Estimated manager-run earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Conservative Bottom-third medians |
$1,311,575 | 24.86% | $326,000 |
|
Base Middle-third medians |
$1,863,300 | 37.94% | $707,000 |
|
Upside Upper-third medians |
$2,595,549 | 42.51% | $1,103,000 |
Why use the company-operated table as a proxy?
It is the closest same-brand cost evidence available, but it remains a proxy. The Item 19 corporate table covers 262 company-operated clubs and includes payroll, marketing, a 7% royalty adjustment, utilities, supplies and maintenance, miscellaneous expenses, and rent. The Planet Fitness 2025 Form 10-K also states that management believes franchisee four-wall adjusted EBITDA margins are generally in line with royalty-adjusted company-operated margins, based on franchisee business reviews and estimates.
The limitation is material: company-operated purchasing, staffing, insurance, lease terms, and management systems may differ from a franchisee's. The FDD also does not establish that the corporate and franchised clubs in each third occupy identical markets or cost structures. This reliance on a company-operated proxy is the principal reason for the Limited evidence-confidence label.
How does owner involvement change the result?
A manager-run owner receives the modeled business residual, while a true owner-operator may also capture the wage value of a management job performed personally. The 2026 FDD does not present Planet Fitness owner salaries, draws, or distributions, so the labor component must remain separately labeled.
Item 15 requires an owner or Responsible Owner to manage and operate the business as a primary occupation unless Planet Fitness approves an Approved Operator. A club must always be managed by an owner, Responsible Owner, Approved Operator, or trained manager. This structure does not support treating ownership as automatically passive.
What can move actual cash earnings below the model?
The largest downward risks are rent and labor variation, franchise-specific fees not separable in the corporate table, financing, and major equipment or remodel obligations. These uncertainties are official or derived from the 2026 FDD, but their timing and club-level amounts are not disclosed for the franchised Item 19 population.
Which recurring franchise obligations are included or unresolved?
The company-operated EBITDA proxy includes royalty and marketing expense, but it does not resolve every franchisee-specific fee. The 2025 corporate table includes a 7% royalty adjustment, National Advertising Fund expense, local marketing, payroll, rent, utilities, supplies and maintenance, and miscellaneous operating costs. The current 2026 FDD changes the NAF/LAF mix but keeps the combined requirement at no more than 9% of EFT Dues Draft.
- Royalty: 7% of total gross monthly and annual membership fees payable through EFT Dues Draft.
- Advertising: during 2026, NAF is 2% of EFT Dues Draft plus 1% of gross Monthly EFT; LAF is the greater of $50,000 or 6% of cumulative Monthly EFT. Combined NAF and LAF requirements cannot exceed 9% of EFT Dues Draft.
- Join Fee: 20% of the regular monthly membership fee or 5% of a prepaid membership price for each new membership. The Item 19 tables do not provide new-member counts and price mix, so this scenario does not separately quantify that charge.
- Software: currently $100 per year, immaterial to the displayed rounded range but still an Item 6 obligation.
- Debt and taxes: loan interest, principal payments, and personal income taxes are excluded from the earnings figures.
How much capital expenditure is missing from EBITDA?
Potentially substantial amounts are excluded. Item 6 estimates $333,000 to $995,000 for re-equipment every five to nine years and $250,000 to $1.2 million for a substantial remodel no more often than every 12 years under ordinary timing rules. The Item 19 EBITDA table expressly excludes reserves for these future capital expenditures.
Does multi-unit ownership make the per-club estimate scalable?
No simple multiplication is defensible. The per-club figures do not automatically become portfolio owner earnings because new-unit ramp-up, centralized overhead, regional managers, shared marketing, development timing, and debt structure change with scale. Planet Fitness, Inc. reports that approximately 98% of franchise clubs were owned by groups with at least three clubs at the end of 2025, reinforcing that a per-unit result is not a per-owner result. The SEC population is system-wide and broader than the U.S.-only FDD cohort, so it is used only to describe ownership structure, not to alter the earnings calculation.
What should a prospective owner verify before relying on the range?
A buyer should replace every proxy with site-specific evidence wherever possible. The most important verification is whether the proposed club can support the expected membership billing while maintaining realistic local payroll, occupancy, marketing, collection, and capital costs.
- Request the written substantiation for Item 19 and confirm the exact 2025 cohort definitions, exclusions, and calculations.
- Ask current franchisees for club-level profit-and-loss statements that reconcile EFT Revenue to collected Net Revenue, EBITDA, owner compensation, debt service, and distributions.
- Separate mature-club results from first-year and ramp-up performance; the official franchised revenue table excludes clubs that did not operate for the entire year.
- Obtain local quotes for rent, wages, utilities, insurance, maintenance, and payment processing rather than adopting corporate medians.
- Quantify the Item 6 Join Fee using expected new-member volume and membership mix, and confirm the current NAF, LAF, and special-marketing calendar.
- Build a funded equipment and remodel reserve, then show loan interest and principal separately from unit-level EBITDA.
- Confirm in writing whether an Approved Operator is permitted and whether owner operation can actually eliminate a paid management role.
- Review Item 20 contacts and interview both current and former franchisees. The Federal Trade Commission's franchise-buying guide explains how Item 19 claims and Item 20 outlet information should be evaluated.
What is the strongest defensible earnings range?
The strongest defensible manager-run range is approximately $326,000 to $1.10 million per established, full-year franchised club, with a base scenario near $707,000. It is scenario-based, not an official Planet Fitness franchisee-profit disclosure. The most important earnings driver is the combination of recurring membership billing and the operating margin that remains after payroll and occupancy. The largest unresolved uncertainty is whether company-operated cost ratios, including franchise-specific charges and capital needs, match the buyer's location.
An actively working owner may produce an estimated owner-operator benefit about $47,000 higher only by genuinely replacing paid management labor. Before treating any amount as distributable cash, a buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, actual franchisee profit-and-loss statements, current Item 6 fees, capital reserves, financing, and the proposed owner-management structure through written documentation and franchisee interviews.