This is an estimated manager-run, pre-tax owner-earnings range for one U.S. studio, not an official profit disclosure. The base scenario is about $15,000. An owner who personally replaces a paid studio manager could produce an estimated owner-operator benefit of about $19,000 to $95,000, but that higher figure includes the market value of the owner's labor rather than passive business profit.
This range is an independent analytical scenario. It is not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Exercise Coach USA, LLC. It combines identified facts from the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with separately identified scenario assumptions and a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage benchmark. Actual results can differ materially because of location, Strength Plus adoption, sales, staffing, payroll, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
- Legal franchisor
- Exercise Coach USA, LLC
- Disclosure document
- 2026 U.S. Franchise Disclosure Document, issued April 20, 2026 and amended April 30, 2026; Item 19, pages 40–46. The citation is unlinked because a matching franchisor-hosted public copy was not verified.
- Item 19 status
- Official Gross Sales and four Select Operating Expenses are disclosed; net income, EBITDA, cash flow, and owner compensation are not.
- Applicable population
- 206 franchised studios open for the full 2025 Measuring Year for Gross Sales; 126 reporting franchised studios for expense-survey data.
- Official supplemental sources
- The Exercise Coach U.S. franchise page, BLS Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers wage data, and FTC Franchise Rule guidance.
- Date checked
- July 14, 2026
What does The Exercise Coach Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially measures Gross Sales and selected operating costs, not owner earnings. For the January 1 through December 31, 2025 Measuring Year, the 206 qualifying franchised studios had median Gross Sales of $295,870 and average Gross Sales of $304,317. Ninety-one studios, or 44%, met or exceeded the average.
The disclosure defines Gross Sales as studio revenue, subject to stated exclusions such as sales taxes, client refunds, and ordinary-course equipment sales. Gross Sales is revenue before payroll, rent, marketing, franchise fees, technology, insurance, financing, and other costs. It cannot be treated as owner income.
Mode C — FDD-anchored scenario estimate. The FDD supplies a strong same-brand revenue anchor and some expense evidence, but not a complete profit statement.
Limited. Sales and expense populations are different, the expense disclosure omits material costs, and the current Strength Plus format lacks a full-year operating history.
All 206 qualifying franchised studios; revenue, not earnings.
The Gross Sales cohort excluded 11 2025 openings and 5 studios that closed during 2025.
From 126 reporting studios; employee payroll excludes owner wages.
6% royalty plus 1% Brand Fund, subject to the royalty minimum.
$4,000 per month after the Grand Opening Period; the current digital marketing fee is credited toward it.
BLS May 2023 annual mean wage for Personal Service Managers in NAICS 713940.
The Item 19 expense table covers only Marketing, Payroll, Rent, and Utilities. It expressly excludes owner pay, royalty and credit-card fees, insurance, technology, water filtration, supplies, repairs, professional fees, phone, some taxes, bank charges, and miscellaneous expenses. The FDD therefore does not provide a direct path from its Gross Sales table to net income without additional assumptions.
How broad is the official sales distribution?
The official 2025 franchised-studio distribution is wide. Median Gross Sales ranged from $182,018 in the bottom quartile to $431,623 in the top quartile, while individual studios ranged from $108,786 to $734,007. Those are historical revenue observations for full-year studios, not earnings outcomes or probabilities for a new location.
| 2025 franchised-studio cohort | Studios | Median Gross Sales | Average Gross Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top quartile | 52 | $431,623 | $459,507 |
| Second quartile | 52 | $326,293 | $326,912 |
| Third quartile | 51 | $252,102 | $253,825 |
| Bottom quartile | 51 | $182,018 | $173,537 |
How is the annual owner-earnings range calculated?
The estimate applies a consistent operating-cost bridge to three official 2025 revenue anchors. Conservative uses the third-quartile median of $252,102, Base uses the all-studio median of $295,870, and Upside uses the second-quartile median of $326,293. These are analytical scenarios for one mature, manager-run studio; they are not franchisor forecasts and do not represent the full historical range.
- FDD expense inputs: median Payroll of $124,032, median Rent of $38,172, and median Utilities of $4,686 from the 126 reporting studios.
- Current recurring obligations: $48,000 annual Local Marketing Commitment, 6% royalty, 1% Brand Fund, $22,956 for current proprietary technology, third-party technology and Balance Tracker fees, approximately $3,800 insurance, and $720 water filtration.
- Other excluded operating costs: 8% of sales in Conservative, 6% in Base, and 4% in Upside. This editorial assumption covers omitted items such as card processing, supplies, repairs, phone, accounting, bank charges, miscellaneous costs, and location-specific taxes.
- Owner-earnings definition: estimated pre-tax cash available after normal unit-level operating expenses and recurring franchise fees, before interest, financing principal, depreciation, capital expenditures, personal income taxes, and owner compensation.
- Manager treatment: the manager-run model retains the full FDD median Payroll amount. It assumes normal manager and coach compensation is included within that payroll input.
Annual pre-tax business result before debt service, depreciation, capital expenditures, and personal taxes.
Interpretation: fixed payroll, occupancy, marketing, and technology costs create substantial operating leverage. A roughly $74,000 spread in modeled revenue changes the manager-run result by about $76,000 because most modeled costs do not fall proportionally with sales.
Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, Tables 1A and 5, pages 43 and 45; Item 6, pages 6–10. Calculations are independent scenarios rounded to the nearest $1,000.
What does the Base scenario bridge look like?
The Base scenario leaves approximately $15,041 after modeled unit-level costs. This is a derived analytical result using the 2025 franchised-studio median Gross Sales, selected FDD median expenses, current recurring fee terms, and a 6% assumption for costs omitted from the FDD expense table.
| Base scenario bridge | Evidence treatment | Annual amount |
|---|---|---|
| Gross Sales | Official 2025 median, 206 franchised studios | $295,870 |
| Payroll | Official median, different 126-studio reporting cohort | −$124,032 |
| Rent and Utilities | Official medians, different 126-studio reporting cohort | −$42,858 |
| Local Marketing Commitment | Official current minimum after Grand Opening Period | −$48,000 |
| Royalty and Brand Fund | Official 6% plus 1% of Gross Sales | −$20,711 |
| Technology and Balance Tracker | Official current monthly fees, annualized | −$22,956 |
| Insurance and water filtration | FDD estimates | −$4,520 |
| Other excluded operating costs | Scenario assumption: 6% of Gross Sales | −$17,752 |
| Estimated pre-tax owner earnings | Before debt service, depreciation, capital expenditures, taxes, and owner pay | $15,041 |
The model uses separate medians as planning inputs. It does not claim that a studio with median sales also incurred every median expense. Summing medians from different distributions does not produce an official median profit.
Item 19 reports median Marketing of $36,618 for the 126 reporting studios, but Item 6 requires a current post-opening Local Marketing Commitment of $4,000 per month, or $48,000 annually. The reporting period, expense classification, and current contractual requirement do not reconcile cleanly, so the scenario uses the higher current requirement and treats the $790 monthly digital marketing fee as included because Item 6 credits it toward local marketing.
How does owner involvement change the earnings result?
Active owner operation can change economic benefit by roughly the value of a manager's labor, but it does not create passive profit. Item 15 permits a trained manager to provide onsite management while the Managing Owner retains oversight and leadership. It also permits the Managing Owner to be onsite. The owner-operator scenario assumes the owner replaces one paid manager and adds $46,920, the BLS May 2023 annual mean wage for Personal Service Managers in NAICS 713940 Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers.
The owner-operator figure includes $46,920 of labor value for replacing a paid manager; no payroll-tax or benefit savings are added.
Interpretation: replacing a manager improves owner economic benefit, but the entire $46,920 difference compensates the owner for management work. It should not be described as distributable profit or passive income.
Source: 2026 FDD, Item 15, pages 35–36, and Item 19 payroll definition, page 41; BLS May 2023 industry-specific wage estimates. Values rounded to the nearest $1,000.
- Manager-run owner earnings
- Residual studio profit after retaining the full modeled payroll cost. The Managing Owner still must provide oversight and retain a leadership role.
- Owner-operator benefit
- Manager-run residual plus the estimated market value of management labor performed by the owner. It combines business profit and compensation for work.
- Owner salary or draw
- A payment method, not an additional economic return. Paying a salary to the owner reduces business profit but may reclassify the same economic benefit.
- After-tax take-home pay
- Not estimated. It depends on entity structure, state and local rules, deductions, payroll treatment, and the owner's personal tax circumstances.
Why is confidence limited for a new Strength Plus studio?
A new buyer must launch as a Strength Plus Studio, but Item 19 does not provide a full-year Strength Plus earnings record. The 2026 FDD says 60 qualifying studios participated in the program, including 56 franchised studios, but none operated as Strength Plus for the entire 2025 Measuring Year. The annual scenario therefore uses the broader 2025 franchised-studio sales distribution rather than treating a partial-year pilot cohort as a mature format.
For the same 56 franchised studios, Q1 2026 median Gross Sales were $105,242, compared with $96,439 in Q1 2025. That is a derived 9.1% year-over-year increase in the median, but 33 studios adopted before January 1, 2026 and 27 enrolled at various points during Q1 2026. The quarter is useful directional evidence, not a clean full-year measure of Strength Plus economics, and it should not be multiplied by four.
The strongest unresolved issue is whether Strength Plus raises annual revenue enough to offset any added coaching, equipment, technology, training, and service-delivery costs at a new studio. Item 19 supplies early revenue evidence but no matched full-year Strength Plus profit-and-loss data.
How do sample exclusions affect interpretation?
The official sales cohort describes studios that survived and operated for the full year. Item 19 excluded 11 franchised studios that opened after January 1, 2025 and 5 that permanently closed during 2025. Item 20 shows franchised outlets increased from 211 at the start of 2025 to 217 at year-end, with 11 openings, 5 closures, and 12 transfers to new owners. A prospective buyer should not assume the full-year cohort captures startup ramp, early underperformance, closure economics, or transition costs.
Which variables can move owner earnings the most?
Sales productivity and labor structure are the dominant variables in this model. The result is estimated for one mature U.S. studio, and most modeled costs are fixed or semi-fixed over the scenario range. A change in recurring memberships or coaching utilization can therefore flow disproportionately to the bottom line.
- Gross Sales: the middle two quartile medians differ by $74,191, which is larger than the Base scenario's entire residual profit.
- Payroll: Item 19's median Payroll is $124,032, but the survey does not separate owner-operated, manager-run, part-time, and full-time staffing structures.
- Occupancy: Item 19 median Rent is $38,172, while Item 7 states expected monthly rent can range from $2,000 to $6,000 for roughly 800 to 2,000 square feet.
- Marketing: the current $4,000 monthly local requirement is material at the median sales level, and spending above the minimum reduces near-term owner earnings unless it generates sufficient incremental sales.
- Omitted costs: card fees, repairs, supplies, professional services, phone, local taxes, and miscellaneous costs are not quantified by Item 19; the model's 4% to 8% band is a major source of uncertainty.
- Debt service: no interest or principal is deducted. Financing the initial investment or equipment can materially reduce cash available to the owner even when unit-level operating profit is positive.
The initial investment of $262,735 to $481,369 from Item 7 is not an annual expense and is not subtracted from one year of revenue. Depreciation, future equipment replacement, remodels, and other capital expenditures are also outside the operating scenario. No return on investment, payback period, or after-tax income is inferred.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should replace the scenario assumptions with studio-level evidence before making a decision. The 2026 FDD states that written substantiation for Item 19 is available upon reasonable request, and Item 20 provides contacts for current and former franchisees. The most useful verification is a matched revenue-and-expense view for studios comparable in age, format, geography, staffing, and owner role.
- Request Item 19 written substantiation and ask whether Gross Sales can be matched to Payroll, Rent, Utilities, and Marketing for the same studios without exposing private franchisee information.
- Ask for full-year Strength Plus operating evidence, including adoption dates, added labor hours, pricing, retention, service mix, technology costs, and any incremental equipment obligations.
- Interview manager-run and owner-operated franchisees separately. Ask how many weekly hours the owner works and whether owner labor is recorded in payroll.
- Verify actual merchant-processing rates, insurance, repairs, supplies, professional fees, phone, local taxes, and all required software charges for the proposed location.
- Compare the proposed lease to the Retail and Non-Retail expense cohorts, including base rent, common-area charges, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
- Build a financing schedule separately. Test interest and principal payments against the Conservative, Base, and Upside operating results rather than assuming debt service is covered.
- For multi-unit plans, model each studio's opening date, ramp period, manager structure, shared overhead, and development timing. Do not multiply one mature unit result by the number of planned locations.
The FTC's Franchise Rule guidance explains that a financial performance representation must have a reasonable basis and appear in Item 19. Testimonials, sales discussions, and general statements on a franchise website should not replace the FDD's defined population, period, assumptions, and written substantiation.
What is the decision-useful earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is an estimated −$28,000 to $48,000 in annual manager-run, pre-tax owner earnings per mature studio, with a Base scenario of about $15,000. It is scenario-based, not an official Item 19 profit figure. If the owner replaces a paid manager, estimated owner-operator benefit rises to approximately $19,000 to $95,000, but the incremental amount compensates the owner for labor.
The largest earnings driver is Gross Sales relative to the studio's largely fixed payroll, occupancy, marketing, and technology structure. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the full-year Strength Plus profit profile for a new studio. Before relying on the range, a buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, obtain matched full-studio expense data, separate owner labor from business profit, and test the assumptions in interviews with comparable current and former franchisees.