How Much Does a Sport Clips Franchise Owner Make?

Officially, Item 19 reports store sales and company-owned Operating Profit, not annual owner income for franchised stores. The franchised-store section covers 2025 Gross Sales for 1,645 mature stores. The expense section covers 73 mature company-owned stores in specified markets and reports Operating Profit before royalty and weekly training fees. Those populations must remain separate.

Official FDD fact. Percentages are shown as disclosed and may reflect rounding. The bands describe revenue distribution; they do not disclose the distribution of franchisee profit. Source: 2026 Sport Clips FDD, Item 19, pp. 44–45.

Why is company-owned Operating Profit only a proxy?

The answer is uncertain because the 73-store expense report is official same-brand evidence, but it is not a franchised-store earnings cohort. The stores were company-owned, located in markets where Sport Clips said it was not offering franchises, and excluded six non-mature stores, two temporarily closed stores, and five New York stores. Company systems, overhead allocations, lease structures, and operating discipline can differ from a franchisee's.

The proxy is still useful because the Item 19 notes define the major unit-level categories. Payroll includes an on-site full-time manager, payroll taxes, processing, and specified fringe benefits. Occupancy includes rent, landlord pass-throughs, utilities, phone, and repairs. Advertising includes the Ad Fund and other store marketing. Miscellaneous includes Technology Fund, Recruitment Fund, relief-fund contributions, insurance, and other listed costs. The model therefore does not subtract those disclosed categories a second time.

The three manager-run scenarios estimate about $13,600, $79,700, and $109,200 of annual pre-tax owner earnings per mature store. They are independent calculations for 2025 economics, not probabilities, forecasts, or FDD-reported franchisee profits.

Rounded to the nearest $100. The Conservative and Upside anchors align with disclosed company-owned expense bands; the Base uses official franchised median Gross Sales and the average Operating Profit margin for all 73 company-owned stores.

Which assumptions are doing the work?

The estimate is derived from official FDD inputs, with the Base scenario requiring one explicit proxy step. The $416,189 franchised median Gross Sales is multiplied by the 26.473% average Operating Profit margin disclosed for all 73 company-owned stores, then the franchised royalty and weekly training fee are deducted.

• Conservative: $39,535 disclosed Operating Profit minus a $21,088 royalty and an estimated $4,815 training fee equals $13,632, rounded to $13,600.
• Base: $416,189 multiplied by the compatible all-store company-owned margin of 26.473% produces a $110,178 Operating Profit proxy. Deducting $24,971 of royalty and about $5,462 of training fees produces $79,745, rounded to $79,700.
• Upside: $148,071 disclosed Operating Profit minus a $32,225 royalty and an estimated $6,671 training fee equals $109,175, rounded to $109,200.
• Gross-to-Net compatibility: Item 19 labels franchised revenue as Gross Sales but does not provide a separate Gross Sales definition. For scenario math, the model treats that figure as comparable to Item 6 Net Sales, which the franchise agreement defines as sales of goods and services excluding returns and sales taxes. A buyer should replace this assumption if the franchisor's reporting definitions differ.
• Training-fee method: The calculation annualizes the Item 6 weekly formula over 52 weeks using average weekly sales. Actual weekly sales patterns and future fee-policy changes can alter the amount.
• No double charge: Advertising, Technology Fund, Recruitment Fund, relief-fund contributions, insurance, and the on-site manager payroll are not subtracted again because Item 19 places them within the company-owned expense categories.

In the Base scenario, payroll is the largest modeled use of revenue, followed by occupancy; the residual after all proxy expenses, royalty, and training is 19.2% of sales. This is a derived allocation for one mature manager-run store, not an official franchised-store margin.

The manager-run estimate already includes an on-site full-time manager in payroll, so greater owner involvement does not automatically add the manager's wage to profit. The 2026 FDD says the owner is not required to personally supervise the store, but an approved, trained manager must supervise on-premises. The official Sport Clips franchise FAQ describes a manager-style model and says owners are expected to remain engaged in recruiting, payroll, marketing, bookkeeping, and team leadership. Source: 2026 Sport Clips FDD, Item 15, p. 38.

Can an owner-operator earn more than the manager-run range?

Potentially, but that result would be an estimated owner-operator benefit, not pure business profit. An add-back is defensible only when the owner is trained and approved to perform the required on-premises manager role, actually replaces paid labor, and accounts for any owner payroll taxes, benefits, and lost outside income.

This article does not publish a national manager-wage add-back because Item 19 does not isolate manager compensation from total payroll and local pay varies substantially. Buyers can use the BLS May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables as one external reference, then replace national data with actual local recruitingoffers and franchisee payroll records.

Actual results can fall below or exceed the modeled range because the largest variables are local sales, payroll productivity, occupancy, and the comparability of company-owned expenses to a franchisee's store. The uncertainty is specific rather than theoretical: Item 19 does not publish a franchised-store profit distribution, owner distributions, debt service, or cash flow.

• Sales and client volume: The franchised sales table spans less than $250,000 to more than $1,000,000, so one central value cannot describe every market.
• Stylist labor: Payroll averaged 46% of Net Sales across the 73 company-owned stores and included a full-time manager. Recruiting, retention, wage rates, scheduling, and stylist productivity are major earnings drivers.
• Occupancy: Rent, pass-through charges, utilities, phone, and repairs vary by lease and market. Low-volume stores bear a much heavier occupancy percentage.
• Expense-definition gaps: Item 19 does not separately identify interest, depreciation, owner compensation, capital expenditures, or every software charge. The model makes no add-back for depreciation and does not separately deduct financing interest or capital reserves.
• Debt and personal taxes: The scenario is before financing principal and personal income taxes. It is not an after-tax take-home estimate.
• Multi-unit development: Results are per mature store. Multiplying by several licenses without modeling openings, ramp-up, managers, shared overhead, and development timing would overstate precision.

Are there FDD figures a buyer should ask Sport Clips to reconcile?

Yes. Two internal count inconsistencies are official-document uncertainties and should be resolved in writing. Item 19 says there were 1,732 franchised stores at the end of 2025, while Item 20 shows 1,732 at the start and 1,702 at year-end. Item 19 also states that 726 stores were above the $419,485 average and 991 were below it; those counts total 1,717 rather than the disclosed 1,645-store cohort. This article does not use either inconsistent split in its calculations.

A buyer should treat $13,600–$109,200 as a screening range and replace every proxy with local, written evidence. The most important verification is whether mature franchisees at comparable sales actually produce expense ratios similar to the company-owned Item 19 report.

• Request the franchisor's written substantiation for Item 19 and a written explanation of the inconsistent outlet counts and above/below-average counts.
• Ask current franchisees for trailing-12-month Gross Sales, payroll including manager compensation, occupancy, advertising, technology, recruitment, insurance, repairs, and unit-level operating profit.
• Separate owner salary, owner draw, distributions, retained earnings, and business profit. Confirm whether any owner labor is included in payroll.
• Confirm the current Item 6 royalty, training, advertising, technology, recruitment, software, and cooperative-fee policies rather than assuming current caps will remain unchanged.
• Compare stores of similar age, chair count, lease cost, market wage level, and owner role. Do not compare a mature manager-run store with a new owner-operated location without adjustments.
• Model debt service and capital reserves separately. Do not subtract the one-time initial investment from annual sales, and do not call pre-tax business cash flow after-tax take-home pay.