How Much Does a ServiceMaster Restore Franchise Owner Make?

A reasonable planning range is approximately $6,000 to $51,000 a year in residual accounting-style business income for a manager-run operation, or approximately $112,000 to $157,000 in estimated owner-operator benefit when the owner personally fills the manager role. These are scenario figures for the Fiscal Year 2025 mature Single-Franchise Ownership Group population used as a proxy for the current Disaster Restoration License, not official franchisor-reported earnings and not after-tax take-home pay.

The base scenario is about $25,000 of residual business income on the FDD's $590,674 median Annual Gross Service Sales. Adding the BLS median annual wage of $105,770 for General and Operations Managers produces approximately $131,000 of owner-operator benefit. That second figure combines residual income with compensation for full-time labor; it should not be interpreted as a passive distribution.

Item 19 measures Annual Gross Service Sales and selected operating KPIs by Franchise Ownership Group, not owner earnings. The principal single-franchise population covers Fiscal Year 2025 and includes 126 ownership groups that each had one Active Franchise throughout the year.

A Franchise Ownership Group, or FOG, may own one or more Restore Franchises under common ownership. This distinction matters because 70% of ownership groups were multi-franchise groups, and their revenue is often aggregated across licenses or territories. The all-FOG average of $3,146,371 and median of $1,893,622 therefore describe portfolios averaging 4.10 Active Franchises—not a typical single unit. The owner-earnings model uses the single-FOG cohort instead.

Source: ServiceMaster Restore 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 1, pp. 81–82. Program groups are separate disclosed populations. Their figures should not be averaged together or treated as identical operating models.

Who was included—and who was left out?

The official population is a mature-survivor cohort, not a first-year cohort. An Active Franchise had to open before 2025, remain under an active agreement throughout 2025, report Gross Service Sales in at least six months, and stay under the same ownership group all year.

• Included: 126 of the 133 Single-Franchise Ownership Groups existing at December 31, 2025, each with one Active Franchise throughout Fiscal Year 2025.
• Excluded from the single-FOG table: two groups that opened during 2025, four that transferred ownership, and one that did not satisfy the reporting condition.
• Also outside the table: 10 Single-Franchise Ownership Groups that ceased operating during 2025.
• Optional-program limitation: the FDD says new franchisees are not expected to meet the minimum requirements for Optional Programs in their first year.

This exclusion structure can make the disclosed sales distribution less representative of startup performance. Item 20 also reports 1,910 franchised outlets at year-end 2025, down from 1,932 at the start of the year, although the FDD explains that part of the multi-year license-count decline reflects consolidation of legacy licenses rather than a one-for-one loss of operating businesses.

The estimate applies a broad official industry net-income margin to the same-brand Item 19 median sales figure, then tests lower and higher revenue and margin combinations. It is a Mode C estimate for the Fiscal Year 2025 Single-Franchise Ownership Group population used as a proxy for the current Disaster Restoration License, because the current FDD supplies a usable revenue anchor but no profit measure.

Revenue anchor

$590,674 median Annual Gross Service Sales for 126 Single-Franchise Ownership Groups in Fiscal Year 2025.

Revenue sensitivity

80%, 100%, and 120% of the disclosed median: $472,539, $590,674, and $708,809. This spread is editorial analysis, not an FDD quartile or probability.

Margin benchmark

4.249% net income from a trade or business divided by total receipts for Form 1120-S Construction of Buildings corporations in IRS Tax Year 2022.

Margin sensitivity

Benchmark minus 3 percentage points, benchmark, and benchmark plus 3 percentage points: 1.249%, 4.249%, and 7.249%.

Rounding

Calculations use full-precision inputs; displayed scenario results are rounded to the nearest $1,000 in summary text and to the nearest dollar in charts.

The U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 NAICS guidance classifies fire and flood restoration of buildings in the Construction of Buildings subsector, while some remediation activities can fall under Remediation Services. That makes Construction of Buildings a defensible but imperfect proxy for a mixed restoration business. See the U.S. Census Bureau NAICS definition for Remediation Services.

The IRS benchmark is an all-in accounting margin. It includes deductions such as cost of goods sold, compensation of officers, wages, rent, taxes, interest, depreciation, advertising, employee benefits, and other deductions. It does not identify ServiceMaster Restore franchisees, dedicated managers, franchise fees, or restoration-specific service mix. Because the benchmark is already all-in, the model does not subtract the FDD fees a second time; doing so could double-count costs. The separate fee analysis below is a reasonableness and sensitivity check, not another deduction from the scenario.

Active owner operation may add roughly $105,770 of labor value to the modeled residual, but that addition compensates the owner for doing a full-time manager's job. For the same Fiscal Year 2025 single-FOG scenario used as a proxy for the current Disaster Restoration License, the FDD permits an owner to serve as manager. If the owner does not personally supervise, the franchise must employ an on-premises manager within 90 days and continuously thereafter.

The FDD also requires at least one dedicated salesperson within 90 days. The same person cannot serve simultaneously as manager and salesperson. Therefore, an owner-manager scenario still carries salesperson labor, while an owner-salesperson scenario still requires a trained manager. The model below assumes the owner replaces the manager, not the salesperson.

At the $590,674 median sales anchor, a simplified disclosed baseline is approximately $90,900 a year after the first year and approximately $150,900 during the first 12 operating months. This is an official-fee calculation for the current Disaster Restoration License at the Fiscal Year 2025 median sales anchor, not a full expense budget, and it depends on a 6% construction-services mix and a signed Construction Services Amendment.

The calculation uses the FDD's 10% Royalty on non-construction Gross Service Sales, 3% Construction Services Fee on construction revenue, 2% Ad Fund Contribution, 2% Local Advertising Commitment, and $10,699 in baseline required technology charges. The first-year figure adds the $5,000 monthly Initial Local Advertising Fee for 12 months.

What is included in the simplified burden?

The simplified total excludes Optional Program referral and service fees, the $15 per-claim Restore 365 Plus audit fee, insurance, labor, payroll burden, rent, vehicle costs, equipment, supplies, subcontractors, bad debt, training travel, required meetings, and other expenses. It is not subtracted from the IRS margin scenario because that margin is already an all-in expense result and its franchise-fee content is not observable.

The largest unresolved uncertainty is the franchise's true unit-level expense structure. For the Fiscal Year 2025 Single-Franchise Ownership Group population, Item 19 supplies a strong same-brand sales distribution but no labor, materials, subcontractor, occupancy, insurance, collection, owner-compensation, or profit data. The IRS benchmark supplies a broad margin, but not a restoration-franchise margin.

Service and job mix

Water mitigation, fire restoration, mold remediation, contents work, and construction services can carry different labor, equipment, subcontractor, collection, and fee economics.

Optional Programs

QRV, CRT, and SRM participation is associated with materially different Item 19 sales cohorts, but participation can add referral, service, compliance, and staffing costs. New franchisees are not expected to qualify in year one.

Accrual versus cash

Gross Service Sales are generally reported when billed, regardless of when or whether collected. Receivables, insurer processing, and bad debt can make cash flow differ from reported sales.

Local cost structure

Technician wages, manager pay, salesperson compensation, workers' compensation, insurance, warehouse rent, vehicle costs, and travel vary substantially by market.

Financing

The IRS margin includes industry interest expense, but this article does not model a buyer's loan principal. The franchisor does not offer direct or indirect financing under Item 10.

Capital intensity

The benchmark includes depreciation, but cash purchases and replacement of trucks, drying equipment, technology, and warehouse improvements are not separately modeled.

What should a buyer verify before relying on any range?

Verify the actual revenue-to-owner-benefit bridge with written evidence and franchisee interviews. The FTC Consumer's Guide to Buying a Franchise advises prospects to examine Item 19's basis and limitations and to request substantiation for financial performance claims.

• Request the written substantiation supporting the 2026 Item 19 tables, including definitions, reporting controls, and any available distribution detail beyond the published tables.
• Ask single-franchise owners for three years of income statements, balance sheets, cash-flow statements, payroll registers, owner compensation, capital expenditures, and debt schedules.
• Separate billed Gross Service Sales from cash collected, write-offs, insurer deductions, and receivable aging.
• Confirm the manager, salesperson, technician, estimator, project-management, and after-hours staffing plan required for the territory and service mix.
• Model royalty, Construction Services Fee, Ad Fund, local advertising, initial local advertising, technology, Optional Program, and per-job fees from the exact written agreements.
• Compare first-year results with mature results. Do not treat the 2025 Active Franchise cohort as a startup forecast.
• Keep owner salary, owner draw, distributions, retained earnings, business net income, financing principal, and personal taxes as separate lines.

The strongest defensible planning range is $6,000 to $51,000 of manager-run residual business income, or $112,000 to $157,000 of owner-operator benefit when the owner replaces a full-time manager. The figures are scenario-based for the Fiscal Year 2025 Single-Franchise Ownership Group population used as a current-format proxy—not official Item 19 earnings—and carry LIMITED confidence because the FDD reports Gross Service Sales but no expense or profit measure.