This is an independent owner-operator benefit scenario for the bottom 30% of Pop-A-Lock franchisees owning fewer than five outlets—not an official owner-earnings disclosure or a systemwide average. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document reports 2025 portfolio-level “gross annual income,” but it does not disclose owner compensation, operating profit, EBITDA amounts, or net income. Five-or-more-outlet portfolios produce much larger modeled ranges because the disclosed portfolio revenue is far higher.
The earnings figures below are independent analytical scenarios, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by SystemForward America, LLC. They combine identified facts from the 2026 Pop-A-Lock FDD with separately identified IRS, U.S. Census Bureau, and Bureau of Labor Statistics benchmarks. Actual results can differ materially by territory, portfolio size, service mix, call volume, pricing, technician productivity, labor cost, vehicle expense, advertising, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Legal franchisor: SystemForward America, LLC. FDD: issued May 1, 2026. Item 19: calendar-year 2025 “gross annual income” for selected franchisee portfolio cohorts; the document states that 316 outlets were included. Operating model: automotive, residential, commercial, security, vehicle-unlocking, and emergency roadside services delivered through territory-based operations. Benchmarks: 2023 IRS Schedule C results for NAICS 561 Administrative and Support Services, 2023 Census data for NAICS 561622 Locksmiths, and May 2025 BLS wage data. Checked: July 17, 2026.
Bottom-30% under-five-outlet portfolio, using the FDD median revenue anchor.
7% royalty and 1% Advertising and Marketing fee on Gross Sales.
2023 sole-proprietor net profit divided by business receipts; broader than locksmiths.
2023 Census employer data for NAICS 561622: $838.4 million payroll on $2.786 billion revenue.
BLS median hourly wage of $38.39 multiplied by 2,080 hours; payroll burden excluded.
Item 20 separately reports 309 franchised and 7 company-owned outlets at 2025 year-end.
What does Pop-A-Lock Item 19 actually measure?
Officially, Item 19 reports 2025 “gross annual income” for selected franchisee portfolio cohorts; it does not report annual owner earnings. The figures are portfolio-level, not per outlet, and the FDD says they were compiled from unaudited royalty reports. It also says the five-or-more-outlet groups were ranked using EBITDA and share of system revenue, but it never supplies the EBITDA amounts.
| Item 19 franchisee cohort | Official range | Official median | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom 30%, fewer than 5 outlets | $7,880–$94,622 | $49,201 | Low-performing small-portfolio cohort; exact owner count and outlet mix are not stated. |
| Bottom 30%, 5 or more outlets | $1,408,060–$2,059,722 | $1,733,891 | Multi-territory portfolios in contiguous major markets and/or noncontiguous midsize markets. |
| Top 30%, 5 or more outlets | $4,294,443–$4,980,269 | $4,637,356 | Selected high-performing multi-territory portfolios; not representative of all owners. |
The FDD term “gross annual income” should not be silently converted into salary, profit, EBITDA, distributions, or take-home pay. Because Item 19 relies on royalty reports and percentage of system revenue, the disclosed measure is best treated as a gross portfolio revenue-like anchor. Normal operating expenses, the 7% royalty, the 1% Advertising and Marketing fee, owner labor, manager labor, financing, and taxes still must be addressed.
FDD citation: 2026 Pop-A-Lock Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, FDD pages 41–42. The FDD reports averages as well as medians; the average and median are identical for each five-or-more-outlet cohort. It does not disclose the number of franchisees in each cohort or the number of outlets represented by each portfolio.
How is the owner-earnings estimate calculated?
The model applies a transparent after-franchise-fee margin to each official Item 19 revenue anchor. It starts with the 2023 IRS net-profit ratio for sole proprietors in NAICS 561 Administrative and Support Services, then deducts Pop-A-Lock’s 7% royalty and 1% system advertising fee. Because the IRS category is broader than NAICS 561622 Locksmiths and Schedule C net profit includes the proprietor’s labor, the result is labeled estimated owner-operator benefit, not passive business profit.
- Conservative: the low end of the applicable Item 19 range multiplied by the base post-fee margin minus 3 percentage points.
- Base: the Item 19 median multiplied by the 14.2856% post-fee benchmark margin.
- Upside: the high end of the Item 19 range multiplied by the base post-fee margin plus 3 percentage points.
- Expense treatment: the IRS Schedule C ratio incorporates broad-industry operating expenses, reported depreciation, and business interest. It does not deduct sole-proprietor compensation. Capital expenditures, buyer-specific debt principal, personal income taxes, and owner distributions are not modeled.
| Portfolio cohort | Conservative | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom 30%, fewer than 5 outlets | $900 | $7,000 | $16,400 |
| Bottom 30%, 5 or more outlets | $158,900 | $247,700 | $356,000 |
| Top 30%, 5 or more outlets | $484,700 | $662,500 | $860,900 |
What could the disclosed low under-five-outlet cohort produce?
Estimated annual owner-operator benefit using the official Item 19 low, median, and high revenue anchors.
Interpretation: the low result is not a prediction of a new unit. It is a scenario for the FDD’s explicitly low-performing under-five-outlet cohort. Item 19 supplies no comparable figures for the middle 40% or upper 70% of owners with fewer than five outlets.
Sources and method: 2026 Pop-A-Lock FDD, Item 19, pages 41–42; Item 6, pages 10–12; IRS 2023 Nonfarm Sole Proprietorships Table 1, NAICS 561. Calculations use full precision and are rounded to the nearest $100 for display.
How does active ownership change the result?
Owner involvement can change the economic result by roughly the cost of a full-time operating supervisor. Item 15 requires an individual proprietor to directly supervise the business full time. An entity franchisee may instead designate a full-time manager. The owner-operated figures therefore combine residual business economics with compensation for work performed by the owner.
The role sensitivity below subtracts $79,851 from each base owner-operator scenario. That amount is derived from the May 2025 BLS median hourly wage of $38.39 for First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers multiplied by 2,080 hours. It excludes employer payroll taxes, benefits, bonuses, and recruiting costs, so the manager-run residual may be optimistic.
Base scenario: owner-operated benefit versus manager-run residual
Annual pre-tax amounts before debt principal and personal income taxes; negative values indicate the modeled operation would not cover the wage proxy.
Interpretation: a low-revenue small portfolio does not support a hired full-time supervisor under this model. Larger multi-territory portfolios can support management, but the FDD does not disclose portfolio outlet counts, shared overhead, manager structure, or actual EBITDA.
Sources and method: 2026 Pop-A-Lock FDD, Item 15, page 35; Item 19, pages 41–42; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Manager-run residual equals base owner-operator benefit minus $79,851; employer payroll burden is excluded.
An owner cannot treat the full owner-operator benefit as passive profit. Part of it compensates the owner for full-time supervision. Conversely, subtracting a market wage does not prove that every entity franchisee pays exactly that amount; local wages, duties, span of control, and benefits vary.
Why is the evidence confidence limited?
Confidence is limited because the strongest same-brand evidence stops at selected gross portfolio figures. The FDD does not provide actual operating expenses, owner compensation, manager pay, EBITDA amounts, net income, cash flow, outlet-level revenue, or the number of franchisees in each Item 19 cohort.
- Population ambiguity: Item 19 says all 316 outlets were included, while Item 20 lists 309 franchised and 7 company-owned outlets at 2025 year-end. The Item 19 cohort descriptions refer to franchisees, but the document does not explain whether or how the seven company-owned outlets affect the figures.
- Selected cohorts: Item 19 shows the top and bottom 30% of owners with five or more outlets and only the bottom 30% of owners with fewer than five outlets. It omits the middle 40% of five-plus owners and the remaining 70% of under-five owners.
- Portfolio, not unit: “Fewer than five outlets” can represent one to four outlets. “Five or more” has no disclosed upper limit. Per-outlet and per-owner results cannot be derived without guessing.
- Unaudited reporting: the FDD says the figures come from royalty reports that were not audited or independently verified.
- Broad margin proxy: IRS NAICS 561 includes many administrative and support businesses beyond locksmiths. Census NAICS 561622 confirms the locksmith classification and labor intensity, but its summary data do not provide owner profit.
- System movement: Item 20 reports franchised outlets declining from 372 at the start of 2025 to 309 at year-end, with 1 opening, 8 terminations, and 56 outlets ceasing operations for other reasons. That change does not establish causation or profitability, but it increases the need for cohort-level substantiation.
FDD citations: 2026 Pop-A-Lock FDD, Item 20, pages 43–60; total 2025 franchised-outlet movement appears on FDD page 58. Company-owned outlets appear on FDD page 60.
What should a prospective owner verify before relying on any range?
A buyer should request the written Item 19 substantiation and reconstruct earnings from actual franchisee profit-and-loss statements. The FTC explains that Item 19 sales or earnings claims must have a reasonable basis and that a prospect may request written substantiation.
- Ask SystemForward America, LLC for the written substantiation supporting the 2025 Item 19 cohort tables, including the exact definition of “gross annual income.”
- Confirm the number of franchisees and outlets in each cohort, whether company-owned outlets are included, and how multi-territory portfolios are counted.
- Obtain actual 2025 and trailing-12-month profit-and-loss statements from several one-outlet, two-to-four-outlet, and five-plus franchisees in comparable markets.
- Separate technician payroll, dispatcher or answering costs, vehicle expense, parts and key inventory, local advertising, insurance, software, royalties, and system advertising.
- Ask owner-operators how many hours they work and entity owners what they pay a full-time manager, including payroll taxes and benefits.
- Review closures, transfers, and territories that ceased operations in Item 20, then ask former franchisees what drove the outcome.
- Model financing interest and principal separately. Do not treat pre-tax owner benefit as after-tax take-home pay.
What is the most defensible Pop-A-Lock earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible small-portfolio range is approximately $900 to $16,400 in annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit for the FDD’s bottom 30% of franchisees with fewer than five outlets. It is scenario-based, not official earnings. The modeled base is about $7,000. Disclosed five-plus portfolios support much higher independent ranges—approximately $158,900 to $356,000 for the bottom cohort and $484,700 to $860,900 for the top cohort—but portfolio scale and selection drive those amounts.
The most important earnings driver is portfolio revenue relative to technician and supervision costs. The largest unresolved uncertainty is that Item 19 does not disclose actual EBITDA, owner compensation, expense structure, franchisee counts, or outlet counts within each portfolio. Before making a decision, a buyer should reconcile the Item 19 substantiation to comparable franchisee profit-and-loss statements and test both owner-operated and manager-run structures.