For one mature U.S. Waxing the City studio, the same model produces approximately $45,000 to $211,000 of estimated owner-operator benefit. The base scenario is about $41,000 manager-run or $112,000 owner-operated. These are pre-tax analytical estimates before buyer-specific financing payments, not figures reported as profit by the franchisor.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Waxing the City Franchisor LLC. It combines the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document’s Gross Revenues data and recurring-fee facts with a broad Internal Revenue Service industry margin and a Bureau of Labor Statistics manager-cost proxy. Actual results can differ materially because of location, studio size, customer volume, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Legal franchisor: Waxing the City Franchisor LLC. FDD issuance: March 31, 2026. Item 19 status: official Gross Revenues and operating metrics, but no cost, operating-profit, net-income, cash-flow, or owner-compensation disclosure. Population: 138 franchised Waxing Studios open for the full 12 months ended December 31, 2025. Benchmarks: 2023 IRS nonfarm sole-proprietorship statistics for Personal and Laundry Services; May 2023 BLS Personal Care Services supervisory wages; March 2026 BLS private-industry compensation costs. Data and public sources checked July 17, 2026.
What does Waxing the City Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially measures Gross Revenues, not owner earnings. For the 12 months ended December 31, 2025, the 138 eligible franchised Waxing Studios had median Gross Revenues of $457,222 and average Gross Revenues of $478,025. The franchisor defines Gross Revenues broadly as studio revenue after specified refunds, credits, and sales taxes, while chargebacks are not deducted.
The disclosure also reports a $1,159,131 high and a $60,168 low. Quartile medians were $769,533 for the top quartile, $534,768 for the second quartile, $389,122 for the third quartile, and $208,752 for the bottom quartile. Those figures describe studio sales distributions; they do not show wages, rent, supplies, franchise fees, debt service, or owner distributions. Source: Waxing the City 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 54–57.
The FDD expressly states that Item 19 excludes cost of sales, operating expenses, and other costs needed to calculate net income or profit. A buyer should therefore treat every official sales number as a revenue anchor—not as salary, take-home pay, EBITDA, or cash flow.
Official Item 19 medians used as the Conservative, central, and Upside revenue anchors.
Interpretation: The top-quartile median was about 3.7 times the bottom-quartile median, making sales volume the largest visible driver of the earnings range.
Source: Waxing the City 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 54–55. Quartiles are historical groups, not probability forecasts.
How is the annual owner-earnings range calculated?
For one full-year franchised Waxing Studio in the 2025 cohort, the estimate applies a transparent margin sensitivity to the FDD’s revenue distribution. Conservative revenue uses the bottom-quartile median, the Base case uses the all-studio median, and Upside revenue uses the top-quartile median. The Base margin is the IRS 2023 net-income-less-deficit ratio for Personal and Laundry Services sole proprietorships: $23.435 billion divided by $95.929 billion of business receipts, or 24.4%.
The Conservative and Upside margins are explicit analytical sensitivities of three percentage points below and above that benchmark: 21.4%, 24.4%, and 27.4%. This spread is not reported by Waxing the City or the IRS. Because the IRS category is broader than waxing studios and covers sole proprietors rather than a clean sample of franchised employer businesses, the evidence confidence remains LIMITED.
- Estimated owner-operator benefit = scenario Gross Revenues × scenario margin.
- Manager-run residual = owner-operator benefit − $70,872 loaded manager proxy.
- Figures are rounded to the nearest $1,000 in the chart and narrative after calculations use unrounded inputs.
- Owner compensation is not deducted in the owner-operator benefit; manager compensation is deducted only in the manager-run scenario.
- Interest and depreciation are not separately modeled. The IRS all-in ratio reflects broad reported deductions, which cannot be isolated for this franchise.
- Capital expenditures, buyer-specific loan principal and interest payments, and personal income taxes are excluded; no after-tax estimate is presented.
- The model does not subtract FDD fees a second time because the IRS ratio is an all-in net-income benchmark rather than a detailed expense bridge.
Annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit compared with residual after a loaded manager proxy.
Interpretation: At the lower revenue anchor, paying a full loaded manager proxy pushes the modeled residual below zero; stronger studios have more room to support management and still leave pre-tax owner earnings.
Sources: Waxing the City 2026 FDD Item 19; IRS nonfarm sole-proprietorship statistics; BLS First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers data; BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation.
| Scenario | Revenue and margin input | Owner-operator benefit | Manager-run residual |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $208,752 bottom-quartile median × 21.4% | $44,735 | −$26,137 |
| Base | $457,222 all-studio median × 24.4% | $111,699 | $40,827 |
| Upside | $769,533 top-quartile median × 27.4% | $211,082 | $140,210 |
Why is owner-operated benefit higher than manager-run earnings?
For one U.S. studio, an active owner may capture both business residual and the economic value of management labor. The official Waxing the City ownership information says some owners operate full-time, while others retain full-time jobs and designate a studio manager with occasional owner supervision. That supports modeling both structures, but it does not establish that either structure will produce a particular profit.
The manager proxy starts with the May 2023 BLS mean annual wage of $49,580 for First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers in Personal Care Services. March 2026 BLS private-industry costs of $46.60 per hour for total compensation and $32.60 for wages imply a 1.429 loading factor. The reproducible calculation is $49,580 × ($46.60 ÷ $32.60) = $70,872. This is a national proxy, not a Waxing the City payroll disclosure; local wage levels, bonuses, benefits, and the scope of the role can move the actual cost substantially.
Estimated owner-operator benefit is not passive profit. A portion may compensate the owner for recruiting, scheduling, customer recovery, local marketing, staff management, and daily studio oversight. A buyer comparing this result with a salaried job should separately value the hours and responsibilities performed.
Which FDD fees and operating costs matter most?
For one standard Waxing Studio under the 2026 FDD, the 6% royalty, 2% system marketing contribution, labor, occupancy, and required purchasing structure are the principal recurring earnings constraints. These are official obligations, but the scenario uses an all-in external net-income margin and therefore does not deduct them again. They remain essential diligence points because a studio’s actual cost mix may differ materially from the broad benchmark.
| Recurring item | 2026 FDD amount | Owner-earnings relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty Fee | Greater of $100 per week or 6% of Gross Revenue | Scales directly with revenue, subject to the weekly minimum. |
| General Advertising and Marketing Fund | Currently 2% of Gross Revenue; permitted up to 3% | A required percentage charge separate from local advertising. |
| Local advertising | At least $1,500 per month after ramp-up | A $18,000 annual minimum before any additional local spend. |
| Technology Fee | $799 per month | $9,588 annually at the disclosed rate; permitted annual increases apply. |
| Wax, service products, retail products, and promotional items | Typically $50,000 to $77,000 per year | Material direct-cost range, with required or controlled suppliers. |
| Re-invention reserve | $0.50 per square foot per month | Recommended, and potentially required, funding for future remodeling. |
Source: Waxing the City 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 6, pp. 12–19. The $339,945–$646,195 Item 7 initial-investment range is not an annual operating expense and is not subtracted from one year of revenue.
How much confidence should a buyer place in this range?
Confidence is LIMITED because the revenue evidence is same-brand and current, but the profit conversion is external. Item 19 covers 138 studios that operated for the entire year. The system had 167 franchised studios at December 31, 2025, and the disclosure states that 15 studios permanently closed during the relevant period. Full-year survivors can differ from newer or closed units, so the published revenue cohort should not be read as the experience of every owner.
Item 20 also reports 31 franchised openings and 15 terminations during 2025, plus 48 signed agreements for outlets not yet open at year-end. New studios face ramp-up dynamics that are not represented by the mature, full-year Item 19 cohort. Source: Waxing the City 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 20, pp. 58–64.
The strongest official figure is the $457,222 median Gross Revenues for a defined mature cohort. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand studio-level labor, occupancy, operating-profit, and owner-compensation data. That gap is more consequential than small changes in the scenario arithmetic.
What do the earnings terms mean?
The terms below keep sales, business profit, labor compensation, financing, and taxes separate. They apply to the 2025 operating period and the single-studio scenarios in this article.
- Gross Revenues
- The FDD’s official sales measure. It is not owner income and does not deduct normal operating expenses.
- Estimated owner-operator benefit
- Modeled pre-tax benefit before buyer-specific financing payments, including the economic value of management work performed by the owner.
- Manager-run residual
- Owner-operator benefit less the national loaded manager proxy. It approximates pre-tax residual available to an owner who pays for day-to-day management.
- Debt service
- Buyer-specific principal and interest payments are separate. The FDD does not offer a uniform borrowing structure, and Item 7 excludes finance charges, interest, and debt-service obligations.
- Personal taxes
- Not estimated. Entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and individual circumstances determine after-tax take-home pay.
What should a buyer verify before relying on an earnings estimate?
For a proposed U.S. studio, verify actual P&Ls and owner workloads rather than relying on this limited-confidence scenario alone. The FTC consumer guide to buying a franchise explains the role of Item 19 financial performance claims and directs prospective buyers to investigate the supporting basis and franchisee experience.
- Request the written substantiation for Item 19 and reconcile its studio list, exclusions, and Gross Revenues definition.
- Interview current and former franchisees from different revenue quartiles, markets, studio ages, and ownership models.
- Ask for actual P&Ls that separate Cerologist payroll, studio-manager compensation, owner pay, rent, common-area charges, supplies, card fees, and local advertising.
- Confirm whether the owner must replace a manager, supplement a manager, or retain full management coverage in the proposed market.
- Model the proposed lease, local wage rates, treatment-room count, and licensing requirements instead of using national averages alone.
- Keep loan principal, interest, capital expenditures, remodeling reserves, and personal taxes separate from unit-level operating earnings.
What is the strongest defensible annual earnings range?
Using the 2025 full-year revenue cohort, the strongest defensible scenario is approximately −$26,000 to $140,000 of manager-run residual, or $45,000 to $211,000 of owner-operator benefit, for one mature studio. It is scenario-based, not an official earnings disclosure. The base estimates are about $41,000 manager-run and $112,000 owner-operated before personal income taxes and buyer-specific financing payments.
The most important visible earnings driver is studio revenue: the 2025 top-quartile median Gross Revenues was about 3.7 times the bottom-quartile median. The largest uncertainty is the missing same-brand cost and owner-compensation data. Before making a decision, a buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, obtain comparable studio P&Ls, and use franchisee interviews to separate business residual from compensation for the owner’s labor.