How Much Does a Cleaning Authority Franchise Owner Make?

Officially, Item 19 reports Gross Revenue and Average Cost of Goods Sold—not annual owner earnings. The figures cover Enterprise Market territories that operated for all of fiscal 2025, divided into lower, middle, and top thirds by Gross Revenue.

The franchisor’s definition of Gross Revenue is broad revenue before operating expenses. It is not salary, owner draw, distributions, or take-home pay. Item 19’s Average Cost of Goods Sold includes direct labor, payroll taxes, workers’ compensation and general liability insurance, cleaning supplies, mileage, and the Royalty Fee. It excludes important overhead such as Local Marketing Fees, rent, telephone and internet, manager salaries, owner draws, employee advertising, and similar costs. See 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 62–67.

Official source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, Tables 1–2 and notes, pp. 63–67. The official franchise site also displays the top-third average Gross Revenue, but Gross Revenue remains a sales measure.

The estimated manager-run range is $15,000 to $485,000, with a base result near $185,000. These are independent 2025 Enterprise Market scenarios built from the lower-, middle-, and top-third FDD median Gross Revenue anchors; they are not probabilities or franchisor forecasts.

• Revenue and COGS: $680,466 at 63%, $1,289,775 at 61%, and $2,280,201 at 61%, using the official lower-, middle-, and top-third Enterprise Market figures.
• Local Marketing Fee: 11% of modeled Designated Households at $0.374 per household per week. The model uses 30,000, 45,000, and 60,000 households; these territory-size pairings are analytical assumptions, not FDD cohort facts.
• Brand Fund and technology: the current Brand Fund formula of 1% of Gross Revenue or $200 per week, whichever is less, plus the current $40.24 weekly TCA IQ Software Access Fee.
• Office overhead disclosed in Item 19 notes: annual midpoint estimates of $19,200 rent, $3,600 telephone and internet, and $4,800 employee advertising.
• Manager-run structure: $55,000 annual manager cost, derived from the FDD’s $13,750 three-month estimate. Owner compensation is not deducted because the residual is the modeled owner benefit.
• Unreported-overhead reserve: 12%, 10%, and 8% of revenue for the Conservative, Base, and Upside scenarios. This editorial reserve covers items the FDD does not quantify completely, including call center use, payment processing, office administration, accounting, utilities, vehicle and equipment costs outside COGS, and miscellaneous operating expense.

The estimated base result is $182,675 before rounding, or about $185,000. It starts with the official 2025 middle-third Enterprise Market median Gross Revenue of $1,289,775 and subtracts official, derived, and clearly labeled scenario costs.

This model includes manager compensation but excludes owner salary or draw, personal income taxes, depreciation, major capital expenditures, and all financing interest and principal. Therefore, $182,675 is a pre-tax operating benefit estimate—not after-tax take-home pay and not cash remaining after loan payments.

Replacing the modeled full-time manager increases owner-operator benefit by about $55,000 per year. This is a derived labor-value adjustment for the same 2025 Enterprise Market scenarios, not additional passive profit.

The 2026 FDD contemplates active owner management: Item 7’s low investment estimate assumes the principal owner devotes full working time to supervision and management. Item 15 also requires a Key Person who owns at least 10% of the franchisee, completes training, has day-to-day authority, and works on premises at the office. The brand’s official owner-role description likewise emphasizes daily operations and quality control. A buyer should not treat the manager-run figure as automatically passive.

The largest unresolved uncertainty is overhead outside Item 19 COGS. For the 2025 middle-third Enterprise Market anchor, changing only the Local Marketing Fee tier and other-overhead reserve moves estimated manager-run earnings from about $139,000 to $226,000.

Sensitivity holds Gross Revenue at $1,289,775, COGS at 61%, Designated Households at 45,000, and all other modeled costs constant. The 9%–13% Local Marketing Fee range is official; the pairing with a 45,000-household territory and the 8%–12% overhead reserve are analytical assumptions.

The Conservative scenario produces only $14,441 before rounding. A modest increase in wages, local marketing, administrative staffing, or unmodeled expense could therefore turn that scenario into an operating loss.

• Population limits: Item 19 excludes 20 Hometown Market territories, 13 territories that opened during 2025, and five territories that closed during 2025. The earnings range therefore should not be applied to Hometown Markets or new-unit ramp-up.
• Per-territory, not per-owner: Item 20 counts each territory under a separate Franchise Agreement. One franchisee may own multiple territories, so the Item 19 figures do not establish income per owner or portfolio.
• Average COGS: each cohort’s ratio is total COGS divided by total Gross Revenue, not a median outlet margin. Individual staffing, wage, mileage, insurance, and royalty burdens can differ.
• Local Marketing Fee: the actual charge depends on Designated Households and customer thresholds. The modeled 11% midpoint may be too high or too low for a particular territory.
• Excluded cash demands: financing payments, taxes, major equipment replacement, owner benefits, and extraordinary costs are outside the model.

A buyer should verify a territory-specific profit-and-loss bridge, not rely on Gross Revenue alone. The estimate is limited to mature 2025 Enterprise Market territories and should be tested against written Item 19 substantiation and current franchisee records.

• Request the written substantiation supporting the 2026 Item 19 and confirm whether later amendments changed any financial performance representation.
• Ask multiple current and former Enterprise Market franchisees for normalized annual P&Ls, separating owner compensation, manager salaries, financing, depreciation, and capital expenditures.
• Confirm the exact Designated Household count, current Local Marketing Fee percentage, Brand Fund cap, TCA IQ fee, call-center arrangement, and payment-processing costs for the proposed territory.
• Compare the FDD’s annualized $55,000 manager estimate with current local compensation using the BLS May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics tables.
• Identify every cost excluded from Item 19 Average Cost of Goods Sold, including office administration, accounting, utilities, vehicle and equipment expense, recruiting, customer refunds, and other local overhead.
• For a Hometown Market, obtain separate current revenue and expense evidence. The 2026 Item 19 provides no Hometown Gross Revenue distribution to anchor an owner-earnings estimate.
• Use the FTC Franchise Rule Compliance Guide to distinguish a substantiated Item 19 representation from informal sales projections.

For one mature Enterprise Market territory, the strongest defensible range is approximately $15,000 to $485,000 of estimated pre-tax manager-run owner earnings, with a base scenario near $185,000. It is scenario-based, not an official Item 19 profit result. Gross Revenue and direct-labor efficiency are the primary earnings drivers; unreported overhead is the largest unresolved uncertainty.

An active owner who fully replaces the modeled manager may realize approximately $70,000 to $540,000 of owner-operator benefit, but the $55,000 difference compensates labor performed by the owner. Debt service and personal taxes can reduce cash available substantially. Before making a decision, a buyer should reconcile Item 19 substantiation to franchisee P&Ls and interview both current and former owners about manager structure, labor, customer retention, Local Marketing Fees, and costs outside COGS.