A reasonable annual range for a mature, optometrist-led Vision Source Eye Care Center is approximately $91,000 to $230,000, with a base scenario of about $141,000 to $164,000. This is pre-tax owner-operator benefit, not passive business profit: it includes the economic value of the licensed owner's clinical and management work.
- Legal franchisor
- Vision Source, LLC
- FDD issuance
- March 11, 2026; Items 6, 15, 19, and 20
- Item 19 status
- No sales, profit, or owner-income representation
- Modeled population
- Mature U.S. employer office aligned with NAICS 621320, Offices of Optometrists
- External benchmarks
- 2022 Census SUSB receipts; 2023 IRS Schedule C net income; May 2024 BLS wages
- Date checked
- July 20, 2026
The current disclosure provides structural facts but no same-brand revenue or earnings sample, so the estimate depends materially on official industry proxies whose populations and accounting definitions do not perfectly match a Vision Source franchise.
2022 Census SUSB receipts for NAICS 621320 divided by 22,781 establishments.
2023 net income less deficit divided by receipts for Schedule C Offices of Optometrists.
Up to 2.50% of defined Gross Receipts, subject to caps and qualifying programs.
The annual Royalty Cap may apply when reporting and payments are timely.
U.S. franchised Eye Care Centers at December 31, 2025; company-owned outlets were zero.
May 2024 BLS median wage for employed optometrists in Offices of Optometrists.
What does the 2026 Item 19 actually disclose?
Officially, Item 19 discloses no financial performance representation for the franchised office population. The March 11, 2026 document does not report Gross Receipts, sales, Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, Owner Compensation, or owner earnings for any outlet population. Therefore, none of the annual dollar figures in this article is reported by the franchisor.
The distinction matters because revenue is not owner income. The Federal Trade Commission's franchise guidance explains that Item 19 is where a franchisor may present substantiated sales or earnings claims, and that gross sales alone do not reveal costs or profit. Here, there is not even a same-brand sales anchor to convert.
The estimate is limited to an optometrist-led office because the closest official industry match is NAICS 621320, Offices of Optometrists. The FDD also permits ophthalmologist-led offices, but ophthalmology is classified differently and is not mixed into this model.
Disclosure basis: March 11, 2026, Item 19, p. 26; Item 20, pp. 26–34.
How was the annual owner-operator range calculated?
The range is estimated from a $908,931 employer-office revenue anchor and a 2023 IRS net-income benchmark, then tested across Conservative, Base, and Upside assumptions. It applies to one mature optometrist-led employer office, not a first-year opening, an ophthalmology practice, or a multi-unit portfolio.
- Revenue spread: 80%, 100%, and 120% of the Census average for Conservative, Base, and Upside scenarios. This spread is analytical, not FDD-reported.
- Margin spread: 15.0673%, 18.0673%, and 21.0673%, equal to the IRS margin minus three percentage points, unchanged, and plus three percentage points. These are sensitivities, not probabilities.
- Royalty uncertainty: The IRS margin is an all-in industry result and does not isolate franchise royalties. The high end does not subtract the Vision Source Royalty again; the low end deducts a full 2.50% as a fee-stress test.
- Owner role: Schedule C net income does not deduct a proprietor salary, so the result includes compensation for the owner's clinical and management labor.
- Excluded from take-home: Personal income taxes and financing principal payments are not calculated. The IRS proxy includes business interest and depreciation; capital expenditures are represented only indirectly through depreciation.
| Scenario | Revenue anchor | Margin sensitivity | Estimated owner-operator benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $727,145 | 15.1% | $91,382–$109,561 |
| Base | $908,931 | 18.1% | $141,496–$164,219 |
| Upside | $1,090,717 | 21.1% | $202,517–$229,785 |
Each range runs from the full 2.50% Royalty fee-stress case to the IRS all-in benchmark case.
Interpretation: Revenue and operating margin drive most of the spread; uncertainty about whether the all-in IRS deductions already contain royalty-like costs creates the narrower interval inside each scenario.
Chart sources: 2022 Census SUSB annual data; 2023 IRS SOI Table 2; March 11, 2026 disclosure, Item 6, pp. 6–9. Values are rounded after calculation.
How does required owner involvement change the meaning of earnings?
The estimate should be read as owner-operator benefit, not as passive residual profit. Under Item 15 of the current disclosure, an individual franchisee—or a majority of owners of a professional entity—must be a licensed optometrist or ophthalmologist, and the franchisee or a licensed owner must provide personal on-premises supervision of the Eye Care Center.
That structure makes a standard absentee-owner case inappropriate. An employed practice manager may handle administrative work, but manager pay would be an additional operating expense and would not replace the FDD's licensed-owner supervision requirement. The model therefore does not publish a manager-run or passive-income scenario.
The BLS employee wage is a labor-value comparison, not an allocation required by the FDD.
Interpretation: In the Base case, most of the modeled owner-operator benefit is comparable to compensation for an optometrist's work. Only about $14,000 to $36,000 remains after an illustrative market labor charge, and even that is not a pure accounting profit measure.
Chart source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Optometrists, May 2024 median wage of $127,980 for Offices of Optometrists; March 11, 2026 disclosure, Item 15, pp. 19–20.
How do the Royalty terms affect annual owner benefit?
Officially, the standard Royalty is up to 2.50% of FDD-defined Gross Receipts, and it would equal roughly $18,179 to $27,268 across the three modeled revenue levels. The fee-stressed edge of each earnings interval deducts that full amount; the other edge avoids a second deduction because the IRS all-in margin may already contain royalty-like business expenses.
- Gross Receipts
- Amounts received by the Eye Care Center less the deductions specified in Item 6, including sales taxes, certain reimbursement adjustments, cash refunds, returned-check losses, and credit-card service charges.
- Standard Royalty
- Up to 2.50% of Gross Receipts, due monthly.
- Royalty Cap
- A potential $48,000 maximum for a single Eye Care Center during a successive 12-month period when reporting and payment conditions are satisfied. It begins to bind at approximately $1.92 million of Gross Receipts at the full 2.50% rate.
- Member Dividend
- Eligible, compliant franchisees may receive 25% of timely paid Royalty back quarterly under stated branding, purchasing-program, good-standing, and other conditions. No dividend is assumed in the principal range.
- Other recurring system fees
- The Item 6 table does not list a separate mandatory marketing-fund, local-advertising, or technology fee. Ordinary practice marketing, software, labor, occupancy, inventory, insurance, and professional costs remain operating expenses.
| Scenario | Modeled Gross Receipts | 2.50% Royalty | Cap effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $727,145 | $18,179 | No cap benefit |
| Base | $908,931 | $22,723 | No cap benefit |
| Upside | $1,090,717 | $27,268 | No cap benefit |
Disclosure basis: March 11, 2026, Item 6, pp. 6–9. Item 7 startup investment is not subtracted from one year of revenue because it is an initial-investment disclosure, not a recurring annual expense.
What could move actual annual earnings outsidethe range?
Actual results can move outside $91,000 to $230,000 because there is no same-brand sales distribution, expense statement, or earnings cohort. The most consequential uncertainties are office revenue, the owner's production, optical gross margin, payroll, occupancy, payer mix, and whether the external net-income benchmark already reflects a franchise royalty.
- Office maturity and patient volume: the Census anchor represents all employer establishments, not newly opened Vision Source offices.
- Clinical versus retail mix: exam revenue, insurance reimbursement, frames, lenses, and contact lenses can carry different direct costs and collection patterns.
- Owner production: more owner-provided clinical hours can raise owner-operator benefit while increasing the labor component rather than passive profit.
- Staffing structure: associate optometrist, optician, technician, billing, and practice-management payroll can materially change residual cash flow.
- Location economics: rent, wage levels, insurance participation, local competition, and state scope-of-practice rules vary.
- Accounting population mismatch: Census employer establishments and IRS sole proprietorship returns are different populations, and the BLS wage series excludes self-employed owners.
- Financing and capital needs: debt principal is outside the estimate, while equipment replacement and build-out spending are not captured beyond depreciation in the IRS proxy.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this estimate?
A buyer should treat the range as a screening model and replace every external assumption with same-office or same-brand evidence before making a decision. For a new or converted optometrist-led Eye Care Center, the most useful evidence is actual practice-level financial documentation and consistent interviews with comparable current and former franchisees.
- Confirm that Item 19 still contains no financial performance representation, and ask the franchisor for any written substantiation it is legally permitted to provide.
- If acquiring an existing Eye Care Center, obtain at least three years of tax returns, profit-and-loss statements, balance sheets, payroll records, optical inventory records, and payer-aging reports.
- Ask comparable franchisees for Gross Receipts, collections, optical cost of goods, payroll, occupancy, owner clinical hours, associate-doctor costs, Royalty paid, and Member Dividend actually received.
- Separate owner salary or labor value from distributions, retained earnings, depreciation, interest, capital expenditures, and debt principal.
- Use Item 20 and Exhibit H to select franchisees with similar geography, office maturity, number of doctors, and ownership structure; also contact former franchisees listed for 2025.
- Reconcile the proposed office's operating model with the official Vision Source description of member-owned practices and the 2026 FDD's licensed-owner supervision terms.
What is the strongest defensible earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is approximately $91,000 to $230,000 per year of pre-tax owner-operator benefit for one mature, optometrist-led Vision Source Eye Care Center, with a Base range of roughly $141,000 to $164,000. It is a Mode D scenario estimate with limited confidence, not an official franchisor earnings disclosure.
The most important driver is the combination of practice revenue and the licensed owner's clinical production. The largest unresolved uncertainty is same-brand operating margin—especially whether an all-in industry benchmark already captures royalty-like costs. Before relying on the range, a buyer should verify Item 19, request written substantiation or actual records for an existing office, and use Item 20 franchisee interviews to separate owner labor compensation from business profit, debt service, and personal taxes.