At the 2025 median Gross Revenues of $302,213 for 108 U.S. franchisee owners, a defensible analytical model produces approximately $59,400 in annual pre-tax owner earnings for a manager-run operation and approximately $123,300 in pre-tax owner-operator benefit for an active owner. Across the FDD’s bottom-third and top-third revenue medians, manager-run scenarios span roughly $11,200 to $261,300.
These earnings figures are independent analytical scenarios, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Transworld Business Advisors, LLC. The model combines identified facts from the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with separately identified federal industry benchmarks and explicit sensitivity assumptions. Actual results can differ materially because of location, Designated Marketing Area count, sales mix, agent compensation, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, licensing requirements, and execution.
- Legal franchisor
- Transworld Business Advisors, LLC
- FDD issuance
- March 2, 2026
- Item 19 status
- Gross Revenues disclosed; no profit or owner compensation disclosed
- Covered population
- 108 U.S. franchisee owners meeting the stated 2025 eligibility rules
- Primary benchmarks
- 2022 Census employer-firm data and 2023 IRS sole-proprietor data
- Date checked
- July 21, 2026
The 2026 FDD is cited by Item and page because a matching franchisor-hosted public copy was not verified. Brand and format information can be checked on Transworld’s official U.S. franchise website and the United Franchise Group brand page.
Median Gross Revenues
The 2025 median for 108 qualifying U.S. franchisee owners; revenue, not earnings.
Manager-run base
Median revenue multiplied by a 19.7% employer-firm operating-surplus proxy.
Owner-operator benefit
Median revenue multiplied by a 40.8% sole-proprietor net-income proxy that includes owner labor.
Franchisee owners reported
Eligible owners averaged 6.4 years in operation; some controlled multiple marketing areas.
Employer-firm margin proxy
Derived from 2022 revenue and expense totals for a broader professional-services category.
No same-brand profit disclosure
Item 19 supplies a strong revenue anchor, but earnings require external expense proxies.
What does Transworld’s 2026 Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 measures 2025 Gross Revenues per Transworld owner, not profit, salary, distributions, or take-home pay. It covers qualifying U.S. franchisee owners and one former affiliate owner that had operated for at least one full calendar year and met the stated royalty-reporting threshold. The monthly revenue submissions were not audited.
The FDD defines Gross Revenues broadly as revenue from business sales, real-estate and franchise referrals, valuations, loan brokerage, financing transactions, and other agency services before any deductions. Some owners operate multiple Designated Marketing Areas, so the reported figure is per owner rather than per office or per territory. That distinction prevents a clean one-unit earnings inference. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 34–36.
| 2025 franchisee cohort | Owners | Median Gross Revenues | Average Gross Revenues |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom third | 36 | $67,212 | $72,706 |
| All qualifying franchisees | 108 | $302,213 | $751,102 |
| Top third | 36 | $1,153,178 | $1,880,436 |
| Franchisees with agents | 86 | $391,206 | $862,897 |
| Franchisees without agents | 22 | $94,138 | $314,084 |
Official FDD facts: 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 35–36. The agent comparison is an association with revenue, not evidence that hiring agents automatically increases profit.
The $751,102 franchisee average is heavily influenced by high performers: only 27 of 108 franchisee owners, or 25%, were at or above that average, while the median was $302,213. For an earnings model, the median is the more stable central revenue anchor, but it still says nothing directly about payroll, commission splits, rent, insurance, licensing, travel, or owner compensation.
What do conservative, base, and upside owner-earnings scenarios show?
The manager-run scenarios produce approximately $11,200, $59,400, and $261,300 in annual pre-tax owner earnings. These are estimated results for the FDD’s bottom-third, all-franchisee, and top-third revenue medians, respectively. They are not probabilities and should not be read as a promised floor, expected outcome, or ceiling.
Estimated pre-tax owner earnings = FDD revenue anchor × employer-firm operating-surplus proxy- Conservative: $67,212 bottom-third median Gross Revenues × 16.7%, which is the 19.7% benchmark minus 3 percentage points.
- Base: $302,213 all-franchisee median Gross Revenues × 19.7%.
- Upside: $1,153,178 top-third median Gross Revenues × 22.7%, which is the benchmark plus 3 percentage points.
- Definition: residual operating earnings before personal income taxes and financing principal; the all-in benchmark is treated as including normal employee compensation and ordinary operating expenses.
- Fee treatment: royalty, Marketing Fund, technology, and similar operating costs are not subtracted a second time because the federal margin is used as an all-in expense proxy. This is a material comparability limitation.
Annual pre-tax owner earnings using FDD revenue medians and a 2022 employer-firm operating-margin proxy.
Interpretation: revenue dispersion drives a much wider earnings range than the ±3-point margin sensitivity. The conservative value is not a loss floor; low-volume operations can produce zero or negative earnings.
Sources: 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 35–36; Census employer-firm revenue series; Census employer-firm expense series. Calculations use unrounded inputs and round final dollars to the nearest $100.
Item 19 excludes owners who reported only the monthly minimum royalty in every month of 2025, as well as operations that had not been open for a full calendar year. The 108-owner earnings anchor therefore is not a complete picture of start-up, very-low-volume, closed, or otherwise ineligible operations. Item 20 lists 466 franchised Designated Marketing Areas at year-end 2025, which also confirms that the Item 19 population is a selected owner cohort rather than every territory in the system. Source: 2026 FDD, Items 19–20, pp. 34–44.
How does active owner involvement change the result?
At the same $302,213 median revenue, the active-owner model produces about $123,300 of owner-operator benefit, versus about $59,400 of residual earnings in the manager-run model. The $123,300 figure is estimated, includes compensation for the owner’s full-time work, and is not pure passive business profit.
The FDD permits an individual owner to supervise and manage directly, while an entity may use a principal, general partner, or fully trained manager who devotes full-time and best efforts to the agency. That makes owner role economically significant. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 15, pp. 29–30.
| Operating model at $302,213 revenue | Modeled annual amount | What the amount represents |
|---|---|---|
| Manager-run | $59,400 | Residual pre-tax owner earnings under the employer-firm proxy, which is assumed to include normal employee compensation. |
| Owner-operated | $123,300 | Owner-operator benefit under the sole-proprietor proxy; it combines residual business income with the value of work performed by the owner. |
| BLS labor reference | $105,800 | Annualized national median hourly wage for general and operations managers; a labor-value reference, not a Transworld payroll requirement. |
Benchmark sources: IRS 2023 nonfarm sole-proprietorship statistics and the BLS May 2025 national occupational wage table. The IRS category is broader than business brokerage, and BLS wage data exclude self-employed workers.
A mechanical comparison of the $123,300 owner-operator benefit with the $105,800 BLS labor reference leaves about $17,600. That residual is not a valid stand-alone profit estimate because the IRS and BLS datasets cover different populations and expense definitions. It is only a reasonableness check showing that much of the apparent owner-operator advantage may compensate labor rather than capital.
Why can low revenue create disproportionate earnings pressure?
At the bottom-third median revenue, three disclosed recurring charges alone equal about 26.4% of revenue under a one-DMA, owner-only, post-first-year illustration. The same fee bundle falls to about 11.9% at the system median and about 10.9% at the top-third median because minimum charges matter less as revenue rises.
The illustration includes the Item 6 royalty, the Marketing Fund contribution, and the $230 monthly owner Agent Fee. It excludes office rent, insurance, licensing, payroll, salesperson commissions, travel, professional fees, the Item 11 recommendation to spend at least 5% of gross billings on approved direct or local marketing, debt service, and personal taxes. The royalty is modeled as progressive across the stated 10%, 9%, and 8% tiers; a buyer should obtain the franchisor’s written calculation method for the actual agreement. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 10–13.
Royalty, Marketing Fund contribution, and owner Agent Fee as a percentage of annual Gross Revenues.
Interpretation: minimum royalty and marketing charges can dominate low-volume economics before ordinary operating costs are paid.
Source: 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 10–13; revenue anchors from Item 19, pp. 35–36. Illustration assumes one Designated Marketing Area, one owner, no additional agents or employees, and months 13 onward.
- Estimated pre-tax owner earnings
- Cash available after normal unit-level operating expenses and recurring franchise fees, before personal income taxes and financing principal.
- Interest and depreciation
- The federal benchmark definitions do not allow a precise Transworld-specific separation; their treatment is therefore an unresolved comparability issue rather than a silently adjusted line item.
- Owner compensation
- Excluded from the manager-run residual but embedded in the owner-operator benefit because a sole proprietor does not deduct a wage paid to self.
- Capital expenditures and debt service
- Excluded from the published earnings scenarios. Interest and principal depend on the buyer’s financing structure; Item 10 states that the franchisor and affiliates do not offer financing.
- Personal taxes
- Not estimated. After-tax take-home pay depends on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and the owner’s other circumstances.
What makes the earnings range uncertain?
The largest uncertainty is the absence of same-brand expense and profit data. The revenue evidence is current and franchise-specific, but the manager-run margin comes from a broader 2022 employer-services category, while the active-owner margin comes from a broader 2023 sole-proprietor category. Those datasets do not reproduce Transworld’s commission splits, agent model, office structure, franchise fees, or territory mix.
The U.S. Census Bureau NAICS classification places business brokers other than real-estate brokers in NAICS 541990, but the available federal aggregates combine multiple professional-service activities. The federal benchmark is therefore useful for scenario boundaries, not as a substitute for franchisee profit-and-loss statements.
| Uncertainty | Why it matters | Effect on confidence |
|---|---|---|
| No Item 19 profit measure | Gross Revenues cannot reveal commission splits, payroll, occupancy, or residual cash. | Major |
| Per-owner reporting | Some owners operate multiple Designated Marketing Areas, so revenue is not a clean per-unit figure. | Major |
| Selected 2025 cohort | New and consistently minimum-royalty owners are excluded from the Item 19 population. | Major |
| Broad federal benchmarks | Census and IRS categories contain businesses with different staffing, fee, and service mixes. | Major |
| Agent economics undisclosed | Revenue is higher in the agent cohort, but the FDD does not report agent commission expense or profit. | Major |
| Financing and taxes vary | Debt principal and personal tax outcomes can materially change cash retained by an owner. | Separate from operating earnings |
The FDD provides a current, clearly defined same-brand revenue distribution, but every owner-earnings figure relies materially on external official benchmarks rather than Transworld profit disclosures. A different agent split, office model, or owner role can move the result enough to make any single point estimate misleading.
What should a buyer verify before relying on these numbers?
A buyer should replace the benchmark assumptions with actual Transworld expense evidence. The highest-value checks are the Item 19 written substantiation and comparable franchisee profit-and-loss statements for the intended owner role, agent structure, and number of Designated Marketing Areas.
- Request the written substantiation supporting the 2025 Item 19 Gross Revenues tables and confirm how corrections, late reports, and multi-DMA owners were handled.
- Interview owners near the $302,213 median, not only top performers, and separate owner-operated agencies from manager-run agencies.
- Ask for agent commission splits, payroll taxes, recruiter costs, lead-generation spending, and the number of producing agents required to support each revenue level.
- Confirm the royalty tier calculation in writing, including whether the percentages apply progressively and how the monthly minimum interacts with annual revenue.
- Verify office rent, virtual-office limitations, insurance, licensing, continuing education, travel, local advertising, and professional-service costs in the target state.
- Review Item 20 contacts for current, transferred, terminated, and former franchisees to understand ramp-up, low-volume periods, and closure risk.
- Model financing principal and interest separately from operating earnings; do not convert a pre-tax scenario into after-tax take-home pay.
The FTC Consumer’s Guide to Buying a Franchise explains why Item 19 claims should have a reasonable basis and why prospective buyers should ask for substantiation. The following official sources define the public benchmark inputs used here.
What is the strongest defensible Transworld owner-earnings range?
For a mature qualifying owner, the most defensible central comparison is about $59,000 in manager-run pre-tax owner earnings versus about $123,000 in active owner-operator benefit at the 2025 franchisee median revenue. A wider manager-run scenario range of roughly $11,000 to $261,000 reflects the FDD’s bottom-third through top-third revenue medians, not a predicted probability distribution.
The dominant earnings driver is revenue production, especially the ability to build an agent-supported operation without allowing commission, payroll, and lead-generation costs to absorb the added Gross Revenues. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the lack of same-brand profit and expense data. Before making a decision, verify Item 19 substantiation, obtain comparable franchisee profit-and-loss statements, and use franchisee interviews to replace broad benchmark margins with evidence for the intended owner role and operating structure.