How Much Does a PuroClean Franchise Owner Make?

Item 19 measures Gross Sales, not owner earnings. The official disclosure covers calendar-year 2025 sales for 393 franchised businesses that were open throughout the year and had already operated for at least one full year. The franchisor states that the data came through its royalty-reporting system and were not audited or independently verified.

For all reporting franchisees, average Gross Sales were $941,644, while median Gross Sales were $500,496. Only 112 of 393 businesses—28%—exceeded the average. The gap between the average and median, plus the disclosed high of $20,337,574 and low of $0, shows a highly skewed sales distribution. The average therefore should not be treated as a typical owner outcome.

The range is estimated by multiplying three official FDD sales medians by an external industry net-income margin. Conservative, Base, and Upside revenue anchors use the bottom-half median, overall median, and top-half median from PuroClean’s 2025 Item 19. They are observed cohort medians, not probabilities or forecasts.

The margin anchor comes from the IRS Corporation Income Tax Returns Complete Report. For 2022 Form 1120-S filers in Waste Management and Remediation Services, the IRS reported $47.031 billion of business receipts and $3.288 billion of net income less deficit from a trade or business. Dividing the two produces a 6.990% benchmark margin. The model applies an explicit three-percentage-point sensitivity band: 3.990%, 6.990%, and 9.990%.

What is included in “residual business profit”?

The scenario represents tax-accounting-style business profit after normal operating deductions, not cash salary or after-tax take-home pay. The IRS benchmark is net income less deficit from a trade or business after reported deductions, including compensation of officers, salaries and wages, rent, interest, depreciation, advertising, and other deductions at the industry level.

• Included through the benchmark: broad industry operating deductions, including payroll, officer compensation, rent, interest, depreciation, advertising, and other reported expenses.
• Not separately deducted again: PuroClean royalty, marketing, local advertising, software, and similar recurring obligations. The benchmark is an all-in margin; subtracting those items again would double count expenses.
• Excluded from the answer: personal federal and state income taxes, financing principal payments, owner-specific distributions, and unrecorded capital expenditures beyond tax depreciation.
• Main comparability weakness: the IRS category covers many S corporations in Waste Management and Remediation Services, not only restoration franchises and not specifically PuroClean.

A first-unit PuroClean owner should not model the business as passive. Item 15 requires an individual owner—or one equity owner of a legal entity—to exclusively and directly supervise the business for at least 40 hours each business week. The owner also must devote full-time effort to outside sales or hire an experienced outside salesperson. A trained manager may operate a second PuroClean business under the multi-unit arrangement.

What is the estimated owner-operator benefit?

At the Base scenario, estimated owner-operator benefit is about $151,300 before personal taxes. That equals approximately $35,000 of residual business profit plus $116,340 of market labor value, using the BLS May 2023 annual mean wage for General and Operations Managers in NAICS 562900.

This is not a claim that the business will distribute $151,300 in cash. The $116,340 component values work performed by the owner. It may appear economically as salary, draw, retained cash, lower payroll expense, or a combination, depending on entity structure and accounting. The BLS figure also excludes the employer-side cost of benefits and payroll taxes and may not match local market compensation.

Royalty structure, labor, service mix, and local sales staffing can move earnings more than any single fixed fee. PuroClean’s mitigation royalty is tiered from 10% down to 3% as annual cumulative mitigation Gross Receipts rise, while reconstruction revenue carries a 3% royalty. The actual blended royalty therefore depends on the mix of mitigation and reconstruction work.

The illustration isolates disclosed obligations but does not subtract them from the scenario a second time. The IRS net-income benchmark already reflects an all-in expense structure. Its weakness is comparability: non-franchise firms may not carry PuroClean’s royalty and marketing obligations, while PuroClean businesses may receive system services or referral opportunities not reflected in generic industry firms.

The largest unresolved issue is the absence of same-brand unit-level expenses and owner compensation. Item 19 gives a detailed sales distribution but no gross profit, technician payroll, subcontractor cost, material cost, vehicle expense, insurance, bad-debt experience, officer salary, manager wage, EBITDA, net income, or cash flow.

• Service mix: Mitigation and reconstruction have different royalty schedules and may have different labor, subcontractor, and material economics.
• Sales concentration: The $941,644 average is far above the $500,496 median, and 28% exceeded the average. One very large outlet can materially lift an average.
• Operating maturity: The reporting group excluded businesses not open for the full year or not yet one full year old. It is not a startup-year forecast.
• BDR selection: With-BDR businesses reported much higher sales, but they may differ in maturity, scale, market, ambition, staffing, or prior performance. The disclosure does not establish causation.
• Industry proxy: IRS Form 1120-S data aggregate many waste-management and remediation businesses. The 7.0% margin may not match a restoration franchise’s cost structure.
• Debt and equipment: Interest may be reflected in the tax benchmark, but financing principal is not an operating expense and is excluded from the owner-earnings range. Actual cash available after debt service can be much lower.

The closest Census classification is NAICS 562910, Remediation Services. The 2022 Annual Business Survey table for NAICS 562910 reports employer-firm receipts, employment, and payroll, but those are firm-level aggregates that can include multiple establishments. They are useful for industry context, not a clean substitute for PuroClean unit economics.

A buyer should replace the industry proxy with same-brand operating evidence before underwriting an acquisition or new unit. The FTC explains that Item 19 contains the financial performance information a franchisor elects to provide and that buyers should examine the basis and limitations of any earnings claim.

• Request the written substantiation supporting Item 19 and reconcile the 393-business cohort, exclusions, Gross Sales definition, BDR classification, and high/low observations.
• Ask multiple current franchisees for recent profit-and-loss statements, not just sales figures. Separate mitigation, reconstruction, program work, and non-program work where possible.
• Verify technician payroll, subcontractor percentages, material and consumable costs, insurance, vehicle costs, bad debt, receivable timing, office expense, and owner or manager compensation.
• Model the exact tiered royalty using the expected mitigation/reconstruction mix, then add the Marketing Fee, local advertising, required product purchases, software, accounting, and any program fees.
• Confirm whether a BDR is planned, the fully loaded cost, ramp time, lead-generation process, and evidence that incremental gross profit—not just sales—covers the role.
• Keep debt service separate. Test the actual financed amount, interest rate, term, balloon or residual obligations, and principal payments against monthly cash flow.
• Interview former franchisees listed in Item 20 and ask why businesses transferred or ceased operations. Item 20 reports 17 transfers and 15 outlets that ceased operations for other reasons during 2025.