A broadly representative mature Seniors Helping Seniors franchised unit may produce roughly $3,000 to $92,000 in annual pre-tax owner earnings, with a base scenario near $42,000. This estimate starts with the 2025 full-system median revenue of $826,084 for units beyond their first two years. A more selective office-based, personal-care, full-time “current model” cohort supports a higher modeled range of about $46,000 to $224,000, with a base near $123,000.
- Legal franchisor
- Seniors Helping Seniors, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company.
- Current disclosure
- 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, issued March 31, 2026. Items 5, 6, 7, 19, and 20 were reviewed. No matching public FDD on a brand-controlled domain was verified, so FDD references below are plain-text citations by Item and page.
- What Item 19 reports
- Average and median annual revenue for several franchised-unit cohorts. It does not report operating profit, EBITDA, net income, owner compensation, or cash flow.
- Offering formats
- The FDD offers a Traditional Model and an Executive Model. Item 19's “current model” cohort is defined separately by operating from an outside office, offering personal care, and working at least 40 hours weekly; Item 19 does not explicitly map that cohort to either offering format.
- Arithmetic basis
- No external profit-margin benchmark is inserted into the calculation. Unreported payroll burden and other operating costs are explicit scenario assumptions.
- Date checked
- July 16, 2026.
Broad mature-unit model before financing, personal taxes, depreciation, and capital spending.
2025 median for 81 franchised units excluding first- and second-year units.
Selected 37-unit cohort: outside office, personal care, and full-time owner involvement.
Reported by 62 agencies in the FDD survey; definition detail is limited.
6% through $400,000 of annual Gross Sales and 5% above $400,000, subject to minimums.
What does the 2026 FDD actually say about owner earnings?
It does not disclose owner earnings. Item 19 reports annual revenue, which is the amount collected for services before caregiver payroll, office payroll, marketing, royalties, rent, insurance, technology, payroll taxes, and other operating costs. Revenue therefore cannot be read as salary, profit, or take-home pay.
The broadest 2025 table covers 134 franchised units that operated for the full calendar year. The FDD separately presents 81 units that had progressed beyond their first and second years. It also separates full-time owners from part-time owners and identifies a selected “current model” population.
| 2025 Item 19 cohort | Units | Average annual revenue | Median annual revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full system - all full-year units | 134 | $905,861 | $668,384 |
| Full system - excludes first and second year | 81 | $1,169,639 | $826,084 |
| Full-time - all full-year units | 116 | $1,019,856 | $709,913 |
| Full-time - excludes first and second year | 74 | $1,262,377 | $996,783 |
| Current model - all full-year units | 51 | $1,478,764 | $1,296,196 |
| Current model - excludes first and second year | 37 | $1,750,474 | $1,629,092 |
Source: Seniors Helping Seniors, LLC 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 41-43. “Full-time” means at least 40 hours per week. “Current model” also requires an outside office and personal-care services.
How broad is the reporting population?
The broad 2025 full-year table represents 134 of the 224 franchised units operating at year-end, or about 59.8%. The remaining units were excluded mainly because they opened during 2025, had licensing delays, lacked complete data, transferred, or were inactive. The mature current-model cohort contains 37 units, about 16.5% of the 224-unit system.
Item 19 says 90 franchised units were excluded from the 2025 data, but the listed exclusion categories add to 88. That two-unit discrepancy does not invalidate the reported table, but it should be clarified through written substantiation. Item 20 reports 54 openings, nine terminations, one other cessation, two transfers, and 224 franchised outlets at the end of 2025. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 38-40; Item 20, pp. 46-51.
How is the $3,000-$92,000 owner-earnings range calculated?
The model applies three explicit revenue-and-cost cases to the $826,084 mature full-system median revenue. The conservative and upside revenue anchors are 80% and 120% of that median. Those two spreads are analytical assumptions, not FDD-reported quartiles or probabilities.
| Scenario | Revenue anchor | Other costs assumption | Estimated margin | Estimated owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $660,867 | 14% plus 1% regional advertising | 0.4% | $2,738 |
| Base | $826,084 | 11% plus 0.5% regional advertising | 5.0% | $41,533 |
| Upside | $991,301 | 8% and no regional advertising | 9.3% | $91,892 |
Broad mature-unit model, rounded to the nearest $1,000 for publication.
Interpretation: the model is highly sensitive to the cost categories that Item 19 does not define. A few percentage points of payroll burden, insurance, recruiting, office overhead, or uncollectible revenue can absorb most of the residual.
Source: derived from 2026 FDD Item 19 revenue and survey ratios, Item 6 recurring fees, and explicit editorial assumptions listed below. Values are independent estimates.
Which costs are official facts, and which are assumptions?
The largest modeled expenses come directly from the FDD survey, while the residual operating-cost band is editorial. The 62 responding agencies reported average caregiver payroll equal to 53.3% of revenue, office staff payroll equal to 12.8%, and advertising and marketing equal to 7.2%. The survey also reported average office rent of $1,788 per month.
- Official FDD inputs: 53.3% caregiver payroll, 12.8% office staff payroll, 7.2% advertising and marketing, $1,788 monthly rent, the tiered royalty, and stated technology fees.
- Royalty calculation: 6% of annual Gross Sales through $400,000 and 5% above $400,000. The scenario uses the formula rather than applying a flat percentage.
- Technology and convention: $17,272 in the base case, consisting of the current website fee, CRM charges for the FDD survey median of 56 clients, Care Academy, WelcomeHome, Augusta, and one $2,500 convention charge. Conservative and upside cases use 45 and 67 clients. The client counts and annual convention treatment are scenario assumptions.
- Marketing treatment: the 7.2% FDD survey ratio is assumed to include the 5% local-marketing requirement, so local marketing is not subtracted twice. Regional advertising is varied from 0% to 1%. The Brand Development Fund is currently assessed at 0% and is excluded, although the FDD permits up to 1% later.
- Unreported costs: 8%-14% of revenue covers payroll taxes and benefits not already included, workers' compensation, insurance, recruiting, licensing, professional fees, telecommunications, supplies, travel, bad debt, and other overhead. This is the model's largest unsupported input.
- Excluded from owner earnings: personal income taxes, financing interest and principal, depreciation, capital expenditures, and owner distributions. The FDD does not clarify whether owner payroll is included in the 12.8% office staff ratio.
What does the base-case revenue bridge look like?
At $826,084 of revenue, the base scenario leaves about $41,533 after the modeled operating costs. The arithmetic uses full precision and rounds only for display.
| Base-case bridge | Amount | Share of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Annual revenue | $826,084 | 100.0% |
| Caregiver payroll | ($440,303) | 53.3% |
| Office staff payroll | ($105,739) | 12.8% |
| Advertising and marketing | ($59,478) | 7.2% |
| Royalty | ($45,304) | 5.5% |
| Rent, technology, convention, and regional advertising | ($42,858) | 5.2% |
| Other operating costs and payroll burden assumption | ($90,869) | 11.0% |
| Estimated pre-tax owner earnings | $41,533 | 5.0% |
How does full-time owner involvement change the result?
Item 19 shows a strong association between full-time involvement and higher revenue, but it does not prove that hours alone caused the difference. In 2025, the median revenue for full-time franchisees was $709,913 versus $127,555 for part-time franchisees. Excluding first- and second-year units, the medians were $996,783 and $135,532, respectively.
Official 2025 Item 19 revenue; this chart does not show owner earnings.
Interpretation: active involvement correlates with much greater scale, but the part-time mature sample contains only seven units. Service mix, territory, maturity, licensing, staffing capacity, and owner ambition may also explain the gap.
Source: Seniors Helping Seniors, LLC 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 42-43.
What could an active current-model owner earn?
Applying the same scenario method to the $1,629,092 mature current-model median produces approximately $46,000, $123,000, and $224,000. This is a selected-cohort sensitivity, not a system-wide expectation. The cohort consists of 37 units operating from an outside office, offering personal care, working full time, and excluding first- and second-year units.
| Current-model sensitivity | Revenue | Estimated margin | Estimated owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $1,303,274 | 3.5% | $45,779 |
| Base | $1,629,092 | 7.6% | $123,439 |
| Upside | $1,954,910 | 11.5% | $223,907 |
Why can actual annual earnings fall outside these ranges?
The largest uncertainty is the missing definition of total operating costs and owner compensation. The FDD supplies useful payroll, marketing, rent, and fee data, but it does not provide a complete income statement. A unit can therefore generate substantial revenue and still produce little owner cash, particularly when recruiting, overtime, workers' compensation, office staffing, insurance, or bad debt runs above the model.
How much does business maturity matter?
Revenue increased sharply across the first three completed years in the 2025 Item 19 table. The reported medians were $253,935 for first-year units, $641,401 for second-year units, and $1,175,983 for third-year units. These are separate cohorts rather than a longitudinal guarantee, but they show why a mature-unit earnings range should not be applied to a new opening.
| Completed operating year | Units | Average revenue | Median revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| First year | 29 | $367,253 | $253,935 |
| Second year | 24 | $665,175 | $641,401 |
| Third year | 18 | $1,369,400 | $1,175,983 |
Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, p. 45. The first-, second-, and third-year samples include full-time and part-time franchisees.
Which unresolved variables have the greatest effect?
Caregiver economics dominate. Item 19 reports a 2025 caregiver pay-rate range of $13.90 to $23.50 per hour and a client bill-rate range of $27.20 to $47.00 among the 62 survey respondents. The same survey reported an average of 69 clients and 52 caregivers, with medians of 56 and 41. Small changes in wage rates, utilization, overtime, scheduling efficiency, and billable-hour volume can materially change the spread between revenue and owner cash.
- Owner compensation classification: determine whether the franchisee's own salary is included in office payroll, deducted elsewhere, or omitted from the survey.
- Payroll burden: verify whether caregiver and office payroll ratios include employer taxes, benefits, workers' compensation, overtime, recruiting, and paid nonbillable time.
- Format compatibility: identify whether the target territory will follow the Traditional Model, Executive Model, home-based structure, or the Item 19 current-model criteria.
- Licensing delay: quantify the expected period between signing, opening, licensure, and meaningful client revenue in the buyer's state.
- Fee stack: confirm current regional advertising, technology pricing, CRM client count, convention attendance, and whether the Brand Development Fund remains at 0%.
- Debt service: model interest and principal separately. The earnings ranges above are before financing costs and are not after-tax take-home pay.
What should a buyer verify before relying on an earnings estimate?
Request the Item 19 substantiation and reconstruct a complete unit-level income statement with franchisees operating comparable territories. The most useful interviews are not simply with the highest-revenue owners; they are with owners using the same service mix, licensing model, office structure, owner-hours commitment, and business maturity contemplated by the buyer.
- Ask for written substantiation behind the 2025 Item 19 tables, including the survey questionnaire and definitions for caregiver payroll, office staff payroll, advertising, and revenue.
- Resolve why the 2025 narrative says 90 units were excluded while the listed exclusion categories total 88.
- Obtain monthly profit-and-loss statements from comparable franchisees and separate owner salary, owner draws, distributions, retained cash, depreciation, interest, and principal payments.
- Compare at least one full-time current-model operator, one mature broad-system operator, one newer unit, and one former franchisee listed in Item 20.
- Confirm whether a manager-run structure can maintain the same sales level as a full-time owner-operated unit and what management payroll is required.
- Stress-test caregiver payroll, office payroll, recruiting, workers' compensation, and advertising at local rates rather than national averages.
What is the strongest defensible annual earnings range?
For a mature unit using the broad full-system median revenue, the strongest defensible estimate is approximately $3,000 to $92,000 in annual pre-tax owner earnings, with a base case near $42,000. It is scenario-based, not official. For the selected mature current-model cohort, a higher $46,000 to $224,000 range is analytically possible, with a base near $123,000, but that cohort requires full-time involvement, an outside office, and personal-care services.
The most important earnings driver is the relationship between billable client revenue and total caregiver labor cost. The largest unresolved uncertainty is whether the FDD's payroll ratios include owner compensation and the full employer burden. Before making a decision, a buyer should verify those definitions in Item 19 substantiation, reconcile the exclusion-count discrepancy, and compare complete profit-and-loss statements with current and former franchisees operating the same model.
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