A reasonable 2025 mature-store scenario is about $8,000 to $132,000 in pre-tax owner earnings per full-production Ziebart location, with a modeled base of about $44,000. An active owner who replaces a paid general manager could receive an estimated owner-operator benefit of roughly $96,000 to $220,000, including the market value of the owner's labor.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Ziebart Corporation. It combines identified facts from the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with an Internal Revenue Service industry-margin benchmark, an explicit margin sensitivity, and a Bureau of Labor Statistics manager-wage assumption. Actual results can differ materially because of location, store format, sales mix, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
- Legal franchisor
- Ziebart Corporation, a Michigan corporation
- Disclosure document
- 2026 U.S. Franchise Disclosure Document, issued April 17, 2026
- Item 19 status
- Official Gross Sales and new-store ramp data; no operating profit, EBITDA, net income, cash flow, or owner compensation
- Applicable population
- 80 mature full-production stores, combining franchised and company/affiliate-owned outlets, reporting for the full 2025 fiscal year
- Benchmark basis
- IRS 2022 automotive repair and maintenance corporate returns; BLS May 2023 automotive repair and maintenance manager wages
- Date checked
- July 18, 2026
Modeled pre-tax residual at median Gross Sales and the IRS benchmark margin.
Includes $88,370 of labor value when the owner replaces a paid general manager.
2025 median for the 80 eligible mature full-production stores in Item 19.
About 87% of system outlets; 12 stores were excluded by age or limited-format criteria.
Automotive repair and maintenance corporations, tax year 2022; not Ziebart-specific.
What does Ziebart's 2026 Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially measures Gross Sales, not owner earnings. Its principal table covers the 2025 fiscal year and 80 mature full-production Ziebart stores, but it combines franchised and company/affiliate-owned outlets and does not disclose their expenses or profit.
| Item 19 cohort | Stores | Median Gross Sales | Average Gross Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bottom-performing 50% | 40 | $579,949 | $629,298 |
| All eligible stores | 80 | $1,009,961 | $1,414,150 |
| Top-performing 50% | 40 | $1,801,339 | $2,199,003 |
Source: 2026 Ziebart Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 63–66. Results are unaudited. The 80-store cohort operated for at least two full years, used the full-production format, and reported a full year of 2025 Gross Sales.
The $1,009,961 median is customer revenue before cost of products, technician and sales payroll, occupancy, insurance, utilities, local marketing, royalties, required technology or programs, financing, and taxes. The Federal Trade Commission's franchise-buying guide specifically cautions that Gross Sales alone do not show costs or profit.
The cohort is broad relative to the 92 outlets operating at year-end 2025, but it is not a clean franchised-store sample. Item 19 says the 80 stores had operated for an average of 27 years. Five newer stores and seven limited-service or product-only stores were excluded. Thirty of the 80 stores, or 38%, met or exceeded the $1,414,150 average, demonstrating why the median is the more stable central revenue anchor for this analysis.
How were the annual earnings scenarios calculated?
The model multiplies Item 19 revenue anchors by a transparent operating-margin sensitivity. The resulting figures are estimates for a mature full-production store, not official Ziebart profit results.
The base margin is 4.326%, calculated from $5.631 billion of net income less deficit divided by $130.162 billion of business receipts for automotive repair and maintenance corporations in IRS tax year 2022. Conservative and upside margins are the benchmark minus and plus 3 percentage points.
| Scenario | Revenue anchor | Margin assumption | Manager-run earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $579,949 | 1.326% | $7,690 |
| Base | $1,009,961 | 4.326% | $43,690 |
| Upside | $1,801,339 | 7.326% | $131,964 |
Revenue anchors are the Item 19 bottom-half median, all-store median, and top-half median. The margin spread is an editorial sensitivity, not an FDD-reported distribution or probability forecast. Calculations use full precision and are rounded only for presentation.
Estimated annual pre-tax owner earnings per mature full-production store
Interpretation: Revenue variation and a six-percentage-point margin span produce a very wide earnings range; this is uncertainty, not a forecast that each outcome is equally likely.
Sources: 2026 Ziebart FDD, Item 19, pp. 63–66; IRS Corporation Income Tax Returns Complete Report, tax year 2022.
- All-in margin treatment: The IRS ratio is a tax-accounting net-income proxy across automotive repair and maintenance corporations. The model does not subtract Ziebart royalties or advertising fees again, because those operating costs may already be reflected in the broad benchmark and double counting would understate the result.
- Expense definition: The proxy generally reflects ordinary business deductions, including payroll, interest, and depreciation, but treatment differs across corporations. Financing principal, new capital expenditures, and personal income taxes are not deducted from the published owner-earnings scenarios.
- Comparability limit: The IRS population includes many non-franchised automotive businesses with different service mixes, scale, capital intensity, and owner compensation practices. It is a Level 4 government benchmark, not same-brand evidence.
How much can active owner involvement change the result?
Replacing a paid general manager could add about $88,370 of labor value to the owner's economic benefit. This is a scenario for an actively operating owner, based on the May 2023 BLS annual mean wage for General and Operations Managers in NAICS 811100 Automotive Repair and Maintenance; it is not passive business profit.
Annual scenario values; the connector represents the value of management labor performed by the owner
Interpretation: The apparent increase is compensation for management work. It should not be treated as a free margin improvement or as income available to an absentee owner.
Sources: Scenario residuals above; BLS May 2023 occupational wages for Automotive Repair and Maintenance. The wage is not adjusted to 2026 dollars.
- Manager-run earnings
- Residual business profit after normal operating expenses, including supported manager compensation, and before personal income taxes and financing principal.
- Owner-operator benefit
- Manager-run residual plus the market value of general-management labor performed by the owner. Part is return on the business; part is compensation for work.
- Owner salary or draw
- A payment mechanism, not a separate measure of economic profit. Salary may be an expense to the entity; a draw or distribution may be a transfer of already-earned cash.
- After-tax take-home pay
- Not estimated. It depends on entity form, state and local jurisdiction, deductions, payroll treatment, and the owner's individual tax position.
The 2026 FDD's Item 15 says an owner is not required to personally manage the business. If the franchisee is a legal entity, one owner must complete Sales and Management training but need not devote full-time effort. A trained and certified technician must be present during normal business hours. The official Ziebart franchise ownership guide and official franchise FAQ provide current operating context, but neither replaces the FDD or supplies an owner-profit figure.
Which FDD fees can materially affect owner earnings?
The principal disclosed revenue-based charges are a 5% or 8% royalty, depending on product category, plus a 2% Marketing Fund contribution capped at $30,000 annually. These are official 2026 FDD terms for the offered full-production franchise, but the exact blended burden depends on sales mix and contractual minimums.
| Revenue scenario | 5% royalty + marketing | 8% royalty + marketing | Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| $579,949 | $40,596 | $57,995 | Marketing contribution equals 2% of sales. |
| $1,009,961 | $70,697 | $100,996 | Marketing contribution equals 2% of sales. |
| $1,801,339 | $120,067 | $174,107 | Marketing contribution reaches the $30,000 cap. |
Source and calculation: 2026 Ziebart FDD, Item 6, pp. 16–23. Each range endpoint is royalty at 5% or 8%, plus the lesser of 2% of Gross Sales or $30,000. It is a fee boundary, not a forecast of any store's product mix.
The earnings scenarios use an all-in IRS net-income margin, so the table above is diagnostic rather than an additional deduction. Subtracting the royalty and Marketing Fund a second time would be methodologically inconsistent unless a margin source explicitly excluded franchise fees.
Beginning in the fourth contract year, the FDD requires the greater of the percentage royalty or a Minimum Royalty. Item 6 also requires minimum annual purchases of proprietary products in specified protection, film, and detailing categories equal to 10% of Gross Sales in those categories. That provision is a procurement and cost-of-sales obligation, not a universal extra 10% fee to add on top of an all-in margin. Rustproofing warranty charges, reminder-card costs, national fleet processing, and contingent fees may also affect particular stores.
Why is the reasonable earnings range so uncertain?
The largest uncertainty is that the FDD reports sales without a store-level expense statement, and its mature cohort does not represent a typical first year. The 2025 data are official, but converting them into owner earnings requires an external margin proxy and assumptions about owner labor.
What does the new-store ramp imply?
New locations reported much lower early sales than the mature-store median. Item 19's unaudited ramp covers five franchisee-opened stores from 2022 through 2025, with only four stores contributing to Years 2 through 4.
| Operating year | Reporting stores | Median Gross Sales | Average Gross Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 5 | $107,938 | $302,773 |
| Year 2 | 4 | $808,121 | $987,593 |
| Year 3 | 4 | $1,072,482 | $1,156,563 |
| Year 4 | 4 | $1,166,534 | $1,450,596 |
Source: 2026 Ziebart FDD, Item 19, pp. 64–66. Four of nine stores opened during the measured period were excluded because they had not completed one full year. The small sample should not be treated as a guaranteed ramp curve.
The mature-store population mixes ownership types and averages 27 years in operation. The ramp population is very small. Item 20 also shows the U.S. system ended 2025 with 80 franchised and 12 company-owned outlets, down by four total outlets during the year. These facts do not prove a cause or predict a new store's outcome, but they make franchisee-level verification essential.
Other unresolved variables include the share of sales subject to the 5% versus 8% royalty, labor scheduling and technician productivity, local wage rates, rent and utilities for the required premises, product and service mix, warranty incidence, local advertising, working-capital needs, debt terms, and whether a business owner's compensation is recorded above or below the profit line.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should reconstruct earnings from actual store records rather than rely on the scenario midpoint. The $8,000–$132,000 manager-run range is an estimate for the mature full-production format; a specific territory, lease, staffing plan, and debt structure can move the result materially.
- Request Item 19 substantiation in writing. Confirm how the 80-store population divides between franchised and company/affiliate-owned outlets, and whether expense information exists for a comparable subset.
- Interview current and former franchisees. Ask for full-year profit-and-loss statements, owner hours, manager payroll, technician staffing, product mix, local advertising, warranty expense, and maintenance capital expenditures.
- Separate mature and ramp economics. Compare the proposed market with stores of similar age, square footage, service mix, labor market, and urban or suburban setting.
- Build the fee schedule from the actual mix. Model the 5% and 8% royalty categories, the Marketing Fund cap, Minimum Royalty, minimum product purchases, warranties, and required programs without double counting.
- Keep financing outside operating profit. Obtain lender-specific principal and interest schedules, then test whether cash remaining after debt service is adequate. Do not treat Item 7's $450,100–$924,000 startup range as a recurring annual expense.
- Define owner compensation before comparing stores. Determine whether reported profit is before or after owner salary, manager payroll, interest, depreciation, and related-party rent.
The official U.S. Ziebart franchise overview is the appropriate public source for current format context. Financial claims should still be reconciled to the current FDD, written substantiation, and records from comparable franchisees.
What is the strongest defensible Ziebart owner-earnings range?
The strongest defensible estimate is approximately $8,000 to $132,000 in annual pre-tax owner earnings for a manager-run, mature full-production U.S. store, with a $44,000 modeled base. For an active owner replacing a general manager, estimated owner-operator benefit is approximately $96,000 to $220,000, but about $88,370 of that amount represents labor value rather than passive profit.
The range is scenario-based, not reported by Ziebart Corporation. The most important earnings driver is the combination of Gross Sales and operating margin; owner involvement changes who receives the management compensation. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand store-level expenses and the mixed franchised/company population in Item 19. A buyer should verify the Item 19 substantiation, obtain comparable full profit-and-loss statements, and test assumptions through detailed current and former franchisee interviews before treating any point in the range as achievable.