How Much Does a TAB The Alternative Board Franchise Owner Make?

Officially, Item 19 measures pricing, membership, service time, and selected additional revenue—not annual outlet sales or owner earnings. The applicable period is principally calendar year 2025, and the disclosure uses several different domestic member and franchisee populations. Those figures are useful revenue building blocks, but they cannot be silently renamed profit.

Sample interpretation matters. Chart Nine displays 32 franchisees, while Note 10 states that 31 franchisees met the defined subset and that six, or 19%, attained or surpassed the average. That internal count difference should be reconciled through written substantiation before the additional-revenue figures are used in a purchase model. Item 20 separately reports 83 U.S. franchised TAB Businesses at year-end 2025, after 11 openings, four non-renewals, and 10 outlets ceasing operations for other reasons during the year. The Item 19 and Item 20 populations are therefore not interchangeable.

The $22,000 to $80,000 range is estimated by combining three FDD-anchored revenue scenarios, an official IRS owner-operator margin proxy, and the recurring TAB fees disclosed in Item 6. The model represents a mature, actively operated U.S. TAB Business using a home or existing office. It is not a forecast of what a particular territory will produce.

What revenue assumptions create the three scenarios?

The revenue scenarios use actual Item 19 dues, member-count, and additional-revenue observations, but the combinations are editorial assumptions. Item 19 does not publish total annual revenue for a matched outlet cohort, so these inputs should be treated as analytical illustrations rather than reported franchisee results.

• Conservative revenue: $109,200. Fourteen members, the Item 19 median, multiplied by the $650 coaching-only median monthly dues and 12 months, with no Additional Revenue From the TAB Opportunity.
• Base revenue: $132,998. Fourteen members multiplied by the $700 standard-member median monthly dues and 12 months, plus the $15,398 total-group median additional revenue.
• Upside revenue: $231,400. Eighteen members, the Item 19 average, multiplied by the $900 top-third median standard dues and 12 months, plus $37,000, the upper edge of Chart Nine’s middle-third additional-revenue range.

What margin and fee assumptions convert revenue to owner benefit?

The model uses a 50.25% IRS net-income margin as a broad owner-operator proxy, then applies a three-point sensitivity band and subtracts TAB-specific recurring charges. IRS Tax Year 2023 data report approximately $67.087 billion of business receipts and $33.709 billion of net income less deficit for nonfarm sole proprietors in Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services. Schedule C net income generally includes compensation for the proprietor’s own labor, so it is closer to owner-operator benefit than passive business profit.

The conservative, base, and upside margin assumptions are 47.25%, 50.25%, and 53.25%. The FDD calls the royalty schedule a sliding scale but provides no worked example. For reproducibility, this model treats the 20%, 12%, 8%, and 6% tiers as marginal bands, subject to the $60,000 annual cap and the mature $1,800 monthly minimum. A buyer should confirm the franchisor’s actual billing method in writing.

What does the base revenue-to-benefit bridge look like?

The $132,998 base revenue scenario produces approximately $33,372 of estimated owner-operator benefit after the broad operating-expense proxy and modeled recurring TAB charges. The bridge is before debt principal and personal income tax. Interest is not separately added because the IRS net-income benchmark already contains an interest deduction at the industry level; actual borrower interest can differ substantially.

The model does not separately quantify credit-card and EFT collection costs, insurance, promotional materials, local campaigns, meeting rooms, food, travel, contractor compensation, or unusual support costs. The IRS margin proxy is assumed to absorb ordinary consulting-business expenses, while the identified TAB-specific fees are subtracted separately. That assumption is a major reason the confidence rating is Limited.

Owner involvement is central because the FDD requires day-to-day management and at least some direct facilitation; the published scenarios are owner-operator benefit, not passive profit. Item 15 says the owner or Managing Party must use best efforts to develop the TAB Business, be personally responsible for daily management and supervision, and facilitate at least one TAB Board per month when additional Facilitators are used.

To separate labor value from residual business profit, the chart below imputes only the time needed to serve boards. It uses the FDD’s median 22 hours per month for one eight-member board and a $48.65 hourly proxy derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2024 median annual wage of $101,190 for Management Analysts divided by 2,080 hours. This does not include prospecting, member recruitment, administration, networking, planning, or general management, so it understates total owner labor.

Member count, realized monthly dues, and additional consulting revenue are the strongest modeled earnings drivers. Margin matters, but the revenue inputs vary far more than the three-point margin sensitivity. Owner involvement then determines how much of the result is business profit versus compensation for work performed.

Membership density

Moving from 14 to 18 members changes both recurring dues and the number of boards to be serviced. Item 19 gives an average and median but no per-franchisee distribution.

Pricing mix

Standard-member monthly dues ranged from $105 to $3,016 in the disclosed subset, and coaching-only dues ranged from $126.67 to $1,320. Geography, service scope, and scholarship exclusions can materially change realized revenue.

Additional Revenue From the TAB Opportunity

The disclosed median was $15,398, but the average was $86,039 and only 19% of the Note 10 subset attained or exceeded the average. This is a skewed, voluntary, unaudited measure.

Royalty and marketing burden

The Royalty Fee uses a declining sliding scale but is subject to monthly minimums, while the Marketing Development Fee becomes the greater of $300 per month or 2% of collections after the first year.

Facilitator structure

Using third-party Facilitators may expand capacity, but compensation, training, travel, supervision, and quality-control costs must be included. The owner or Managing Party still has direct operating obligations.

Financing and taxes

Debt principal reduces cash available to the owner but is not an operating expense in this estimate. Personal income taxes are excluded because they depend on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and individual circumstances.

A buyer should treat the range as a screening model and replace every major assumption with territory-specific evidence, written Item 19 substantiation, and franchisee records. The most important unresolved uncertainty is the absence of a matched outlet-level income statement showing total revenue, operating costs, owner labor, and recurring franchise fees for the same population.

• Request Item 19 written substantiation and ask TAB Boards International, Inc. to reconcile the 32-franchisee Chart Nine count with Note 10’s 31-franchisee eligible subset.
• Ask for the number of U.S. franchisees behind Chart Five’s 14-member median and 18-member average, plus the full distribution by franchise age and territory.
• Confirm in writing how the Royalty Fee sliding scale is calculated, including whether tiers are marginal, how monthly collections interact with annual thresholds, and how the $1,800 mature minimum is reduced.
• Separate standard members, coaching-only members, scholarship members, Business Assessment Fees, StratPro revenue, HI-MAP revenue, and non-royalty consulting revenue in a territory-level model.
• Ask active and former U.S. franchisees for 2024 and 2025 profit-and-loss statements, owner work hours, marketing spend, member churn, facilitator compensation, travel, meeting, and collection costs.
• Model debt service separately using the buyer’s actual financed amount, rate, term, and fees. Do not subtract the Item 7 initial investment from one year of revenue.
• Review Item 20 departures, transfers, non-renewals, and ceased operations with the franchisor and listed former franchisees; outlet counts do not prove why individual businesses left.

The Federal Trade Commission explains that Item 19 claims must have a reasonable basis and disclose important assumptions and limitations. Prospective buyers may request written substantiation and should compare the disclosure with current and former franchisee experience.

The strongest defensible range is approximately $22,000 to $80,000 of annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit, with a base scenario near $33,000. It is scenario-based, not an official TAB profit disclosure. The largest earnings driver is the combination of member count, monthly dues, and additional consulting revenue. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the lack of matched outlet-level expenses and owner-labor data. Before purchasing, a buyer should verify the Item 19 populations and substantiation, confirm the royalty calculation, and test the model against actual U.S. franchisee profit-and-loss statements and work-hour interviews.