How Much Does a SEVA Franchise Owner Make?

Officially, Item 19 measures 2025 Gross Revenue at two affiliate company stores, not owner earnings. The Naperville outlet reported $922,996 and the Schaumberg outlet reported $280,178. The FDD then subtracts a 10% royalty, 1% National Advertising Fee, and 1% Local Advertising spend requirement to show “Adjusted Gross Revenues as if a Franchised Outlet.” That adjusted metric still excludes caregiver payroll, administrative payroll, rent, insurance, software, and other operating expenses.

Source: 2026 Seva Senior Home Care Services FDD, Item 19, pp. 35-36. “Adjusted Gross Revenues” is the FDD's term and is not Net Income or profit.

How representative is the Item 19 sample?

The sample is complete for the two affiliate outlets that operated throughout 2025, but it is not a franchisee sample. Item 20 reports no operating franchised outlets in 2023, 2024, or 2025. The evidence therefore shows a real same-brand revenue range, but it cannot establish average franchisee earnings, a median, a probability of success, or a typical mature-territory result. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 20, pp. 37-39.

The estimate applies a 6.6%-12.6% analytical margin band to the two official affiliate revenue observations and their arithmetic mean. The central 9.6% proxy comes from 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data for taxable employer firms in NAICS 624120, Services for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities, a category that includes non-medical home care, homemaker services, and companionship.

The Census benchmark is national and broader than Seva. It is not a franchised-unit margin and does not isolate caregiver economics, owner pay, manager compensation, royalty expense, or a single territory. The conservative and upside margins are the benchmark minus and plus 3 percentage points. Those bands are editorial sensitivity assumptions, not FDD-reported outcomes.

Calculation uses full-precision inputs and rounds results to the nearest $100. Revenue anchors: 2026 FDD Item 19, pp. 35-36. Margin basis: U.S. Census Bureau 2022 industry revenue series and U.S. Census Bureau 2022 industry expense series, accessed through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

What is included in “pre-tax owner earnings” here?

The modeled figure is cash available after normal unit-level operating expenses, but before personal income taxes and financing principal payments. The model treats interest and depreciation according to the broad Census expense aggregate rather than reconstructing them separately. Capital expenditures and replacement assets are not separately reserved. The benchmark does not disclose how owner compensation is classified, which is one reason confidence remains limited.

• Manager-run assumption: normal paid management is treated as an operating expense within the broad benchmark.
• No double fee subtraction: the Census expense measure is used as an all-in aggregate proxy, so FDD royalties and advertising are not deducted a second time in the primary scenario.
• Single territory: results are per territory, not per owner portfolio, and no multi-unit multiplication is used.
• No after-tax estimate: entity structure, federal and state tax treatment, deductions, and owner circumstances are excluded.

An active owner may capture substantial labor value by replacing a paid General Manager, but that value is compensation for work, not passive business profit. Item 15 permits either direct owner participation or a trained General Manager. For NAICS 624120, May 2023 BLS data show annual mean wages of $74,150 for Social and Community Service Managers and $100,050 for General and Operations Managers.

The royalty choice creates the clearest mechanical earnings difference: 5 percentage points of Gross Revenues until the no-upfront-fee option reaches $1 million in cumulative Gross Revenues. Option 1 requires a $25,000 Initial Franchise Fee and a 5% royalty. Option 2 has no Initial Franchise Fee and charges a 10% royalty on the first $1 million, then 5%. Both add 1% national advertising and 1% required local advertising.

Source: 2026 Seva Senior Home Care Services FDD, Items 5-6, pp. 8-13.

What does the royalty choice mean at the base revenue anchor?

At $601,587 of annual Gross Revenues, the 5-point royalty difference is about $30,079 before considering the $25,000 upfront fee. The combined variable royalty and advertising burden is approximately $42,111 under Option 1 and $72,190 under Option 2 while the 10% tier applies. Adding the maximum disclosed technology and third-party software charges would raise those annual burdens to about $57,111 and $87,190, respectively.

This is a compatible FDD-derived comparison, not a second deduction from the primary earnings scenarios. Because the Census expense benchmark is used as a broad all-in proxy and does not disclose its franchise-fee mix, subtracting the same fees again would risk double counting.

The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of a franchised-outlet profit-and-loss statement. The FDD offers two same-brand revenue observations, but no franchisee cohort, no caregiver labor percentage, no bill-rate spread, no occupancy ratio, no manager payroll, and no operating-profit distribution. External industry data can frame a range; it cannot establish a Seva-specific margin.

Gross Revenue

Revenue from operating the business under the FDD definition. It is not salary, profit, owner draw, or cash available to the owner.

Adjusted Gross Revenues

The FDD's revenue figure after a 10% royalty and two 1% advertising items. It still is not operating profit.

Manager-run owner earnings

The scenario's residual after assumed normal operating expenses, before personal income taxes and financing principal payments.

Owner-operator benefit

Manager-run residual plus the estimated market value of management labor personally supplied by the owner.

After-tax take-home pay

Not estimated because taxes depend on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and the owner's circumstances.

Which variables can move earnings outside the range?

Caregiver utilization and gross spread are likely to dominate the economics, followed by management payroll and the royalty option. The following items should be tested against the exact proposed territory rather than assumed from the two Illinois affiliates.

• Client hours and billing rates: verify recurring weekly hours, payer mix, cancellations, refunds, and bad debt.
• Caregiver economics: verify wage rates, payroll taxes, workers' compensation, overtime, recruiting expense, turnover, and unfilled shifts.
• Territory comparability: compare the proposed population and service radius with the affiliate areas of about 248,000-250,000 people.
• Administrative staffing: determine whether state rules require a nurse or administrator and whether the owner can legally and practically fill the General Manager role.
• Fee option: model both royalty structures over the time required to reach $1 million in cumulative Gross Revenues.
• Debt service: obtain actual lender terms; principal payments reduce owner cash but are not included in the operating-earnings range.

Ask for the Item 19 written substantiation and enough operating records to rebuild a full revenue-to-profit bridge. The Federal Trade Commission explains that Item 19 claims must have a reasonable basis and that prospective buyers may request written substantiation. Because Item 20 listed no operating franchisees at the end of 2025, traditional franchisee validation was not available for the disclosed period.

• Request monthly 2025 Gross Revenue, client hours, caregiver hours, payroll, administrative payroll, occupancy, insurance, software, marketing, refunds, and bad-debt records for each affiliate outlet.
• Reconcile Item 19's 10% royalty adjustment with the fee option being offered to you and obtain a written explanation of when the 5% tier begins.
• Ask whether any franchised outlets opened after December 31, 2025, and interview every current and former franchisee available under the current disclosure.
• Confirm that your proposed territory, state licensing structure, payer mix, and required staffing are comparable to the affiliate operations.
• Have an accountant classify owner salary, owner draw, distributions, retained earnings, depreciation, interest, and capital expenditure separately.