Goldfish Swim School franchise unit economics

How much does a Goldfish Swim School franchise make?

The average Goldfish Swim School unit reported $1,994,169 of revenue in the 2026 FDD, and the median reported $1,781,634. The brand’s disclosure document puts profit before other expenses at 28.1% of revenue. Fees come off the top first, at about 8% of sales across royalty, brand fund and the rest of the stack. Revenue is not income. Rent, wages, cost of goods and the franchise fees all come out before an owner is paid. The figures for the highest-selling and lowest-selling businesses are below.

Top performers

What separates the top Goldfish Swim School performers

Fees and what it costs to open

Royalty and fees

We built this from Goldfish Swim School's filed rates, which set a royalty of the greater of $4,000 a month or 6% of gross sales, paid monthly by electronic transfer from the 5th. The brand Fund contribution is the greater of $1,300 a month or 2% of gross sales. The franchisor may raise it to 3% on 30 days' notice. There is also a Local Advertising requirement of 2% of gross sales paid direct to approved vendors and reported quarterly, rising to as much as 5% where an advertising cooperative sets a higher rate. Cooperative contributions are credited against the local requirement.

The minimums bind below $800,000 of sales. At the system's lowest-selling school, $528,953, the $48,000 minimum royalty is 9.1% of revenue where 6% would be $31,737. Add the Brand Fund minimum and that school pays $63,600 of fixed brand cost, $21,284 more than the percentage rates alone. Every school from the 1st quartile up pays the straight 8% to the brand.

The filed profit and loss shows marketing at 5.3% instead of the required 4%. That is $39,883 of brand fund plus $64,916 of advertising against a 2% local requirement of $39,883. Schools are spending $25,033 above the minimum on average, and young schools $35,850 above it. That gap is a choice the system's operators are making consistently, which makes it a practical budget minimum instead of the contract's 2%.

The fees paid to the brand come to $159,533 at an average school, 8.0%. Adding the $64,916 of advertising in the filed profit and loss, brand fees and advertising come to 11.3%. The brand fees are 28.5% the size of the $560,524 profit line sitting beneath it. The Brand Fund may still rise to 3% on 30 days' notice, which would add $19,942.

Cost to open a school

As the brand reported it, reordered here by size.

Item 7 of the FDD starts the initial franchise fee at $40,000, a discounted price. This page uses the full fee for one unit, $50,000.

Building work is $1,334,230 to $2,685,033, 80% and 72% of the Goldfish Swim School build. A Goldfish Swim School is an indoor pool, and the building work covers the pool and the building around it.

The build is 3.0 to 6.7 years of average profit before other expenses. $1,673,263 to $3,746,733 against $560,524, and that profit figure still has interest, tax, depreciation and owner compensation. Measured against revenue instead, the build is 0.83 to 1.88 years. That reads far gentler and is the wrong denominator to lean on.

Water tap fees run $0 to $93,000 and are set by the municipality. Alongside licenses and permits at $4,500 to $80,000, that is up to $173,000 decided by the jurisdiction. Two otherwise identical sites can differ by 31% of a year's profit on these two lines alone.

$75,000 to $350,000 of additional funds covers three months. The high end is 2.9 months of an average school's operating expenses, which makes the three-month label honest; the low end is 19 days of it. The lowest profit result among the 169 Goldfish Swim School schools in Item 19 is a $197,689 loss, so the upper figure is the one to plan against.

The profit and loss

Profit and loss for mature schools, 2025

As the brand reported it, reordered here by size.

Wages are 35.3% of revenue and occupancy cost 11.4%, together 46.7%. That is $930,368 on an average school. Everything else on the expense side combines to 25.2%. So two lines decide this business, and one of them is fixed the day the lease is signed. The variable one, wages, is the only large expense an owner touches week to week.

The highest-selling school bills $6,383,493 and the lowest-selling $528,953, 12.1 times. The middle half of the group is much tighter, $1,389,965 to $2,415,642, so the range at the top is a handful of very large schools. They are what pull the average above the median: $1,994,169 against $1,781,634, and only 41.4% of schools reach the average.

The minimum is a $197,689 loss and the ceiling a $2,945,479 profit. At the median, profit before other expenses is $475,014, $85,510 below the average. The 1st quartile earns $250,114 and the 3rd $765,949, a three-fold gap. Each of those columns is ranked on profit alone, so they describe four different schools.

Revenue runs $222 to $399 a square foot *. That is on a 5,000 to 9,000 square foot building. Rent runs $25 to $45 a square foot on the same range, and profit $62 to $112. In weekly terms an average school takes $38,349, which is the number to run a staffing roster against.

Repairs and maintenance is 3.3% of revenue, $65,221, and ranges $4,723 to $241,923. That is the widest proportional range of any line in the table, fifty-fold. A pool is a building system, and the schools at the top of that range are either running older plant or catching up on deferred work. It is the line most worth forecasting.

The first two years

Profit and loss for schools in their second year

Both columns as the brand reported it; the point gap is marked *, subtracting one filed share from the other.

A 13-to-24-month school pays $230,402 of rent against $226,663 at a mature school. That is $3,739 more, in absolute dollars, on revenue 23% smaller. Building costs are set the day the lease is signed and stay put; every point of the 3.6-point gap closes by adding revenue. On average revenue those 3.6 points are $71,790.

Wages run 39.8% against 35.3%, 4.5 points. That is worth $89,738 on average revenue. Instructor-to-swimmer ratios are fixed by the teaching model, so a half-full class costs nearly what a full one does. That makes class utilization the lever that closes this gap.

Together wages and occupancy cost take 54.8% of a young school's revenue and 46.7% of a mature one. That is 8.1 points, $161,528 on average revenue *. Those two lines account for 78% of the entire 10.4-point margin gap between the two groups. The other eight lines combined account for 2.3 points.

A young school bills 77% of mature revenue and earns 48% of the profit. That is $1,534,009 and $271,835 against $1,994,169 and $560,524. The missing $460,160 of revenue costs $288,689 of profit, 63 cents on the dollar, because the cost base is already mature. That ratio is the case for spending hard on enrollment early.

Advertising runs 4.3% at young schools and 3.3% at mature ones. That is $66,530 against $64,916, almost the same money, a point more of revenue. The required local spend is 2% of sales, so both groups are spending well past the minimum. The young group is doing it while spending $1,614 more in absolute dollars than the mature one. On these numbers, the marketing budget behaves as a fixed cost in year two.

The network of locations

Schools opened and closed, 2023 to 2025

As the brand reported it; every row reconciles exactly.

Zero schools ceased operations in three years, against 59 openings. The base grew from 137 to 192 over the same years. Goldfish Swim School's Item 20 table shows no school closing in three years.

The network grew 40.1% over three years and the pace held: +18, +17, +20. Company-owned schools grew faster in proportion, 1 to 7, with 2 reacquired from franchisees during 2025. Against 22 projected franchised openings the coming year looks much like the last three.

34 signed agreements sit unopened against 22 projected openings. Roughly two-thirds of the backlog is expected to convert. Given a build that takes a year or more of construction, the unopened backlog is closer to a pipeline timetable here than to hesitancy.

Territory is exclusive, drawn by boundary streets. The franchisor sets it on general population, the population of children under 12, proximity to competitors and physical boundaries, with no minimum size and no performance condition attached. It may be altered only at renewal. Owners may advertise and sell outside it freely, and the franchisor reserves online and alternate channels with no compensation.

Questions we get asked

Questions owners ask.