Grease Monkey franchise unit economics
Grease Monkey franchisees build and run a freestanding three-to-six-bay drive-through shop selling oil changes and preventive maintenance, at one approved location with zero territorial protection. Across 174 centers reporting full accounts for 2025 the weighted average was $1,068,198 of net sales on 26 vehicles a day at a $127 ticket. Earnings before rent ran 3.8% of sales at centers under $600,000 and 23.5% above $1.2 million.
- Primary source
- Grease Monkey Franchising, LLC, 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document
- Items read
- Item 19 for sales and any profit figure
- Population
- 174 of 233 locations
- Our calculations
- Marked on the page with an asterisk. Method
- Last reviewed
- 26 September 2026
Disclosure-based. Not a forecast, not an offer to sell a franchise, and not advice.
The reported earnings here stop above rent, and that is where the whole business is decided. A center under $600,000 of sales earns $16,692 before occupancy cost, against annual rent of $72,000 to $375,000. A center above $1.2 million earns $398,698. The distance between them is 26 more cars a day.
- Earnings before rent of $16,692 fall short of even the cheapest rent estimate. Centers under $600,000 of sales against a low estimate of $6,000 a month *, 2.8 months of occupancy cost from a full year of trading.
- Crossing $600,000 of sales converts 43 cents of every extra dollar into earnings. $271,915 more sales turning $16,692 into $134,312 *. The sharpest step change in the whole table.
- Wages take 40.1% of sales at the smallest centers and 30.2% at the largest. $175,680 against $510,520, nearly ten points of margin sitting in how many cars the same crew serves.
- One more car a day is worth $36,495 to $43,952 a year. At each group’s own ticket across about 316 trading days *, so a single extra vehicle each day moves a small center from losing to breaking even.
- Ticket varies by 20% across the system and volume by 217%. $115.49 to $139.09 against 12 cars a day to 38 *.
How much does a Grease Monkey franchise make?
The average Grease Monkey unit reported $1,068,198 of revenue in the 2026 FDD, and the median reported $0. The brand’s disclosure document puts the profit line at 20% of revenue. Fees come off the top first, at about 10.5% 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 Grease Monkey performers
Grease Monkey splits its locations into groups instead of publishing one average. The best group averaged $1,693,209 a year. The worst averaged $438,063. Both run the same brand, on the same agreement, paying the same fees.
Decided before you open
- Trade area and site.A 3.9× gap between bands is not an operating gap. Catchment, daytime population and what sits next door set the ceiling before the first customer arrives.
- Territory, and how much of it is real.This model sells from a territory rather than a building. Two owners with the same brand and different ground are running different businesses, and density decides how much driving sits between jobs.
- What you spend to open.Opening costs $708,057 to $2,284,321, a 3.2× range inside one brand. The high end usually buys more capacity, so the cheapest build is not always the cheapest route to the top band.
Live operating levers
- Wages, the dominant line.Wages take 31.9% of sales, against 20.0% kept at the end. Staff productivity, scheduling against demand hour by hour, and the balance of base pay to commission are where this is won. Small movements here move the result more than anything else, because nothing else in the structure is that large.
- Routes, the operating driver.This model bills on routes. The van costs the same whatever it does that day, so the owner works on how many stops fit into it and how far apart they are. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Service and retail mix.Attachment rate on retail, and the share of customers on the higher service tiers, lift what each hour earns without adding an hour or a room. It is the only lever that raises the ceiling without spending capital.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites.Fees run about 10.5% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
Context you underwrite around
- The reporting screen.174 of 233 locations are behind these figures. Locations open less than the full year, brand-owned, or not meeting the reporting criteria are excluded, so the numbers describe locations that cleared that screen, not the system as a whole.
- What the disclosure leaves out.Item 19 publishes no median, no attainment figure. The brand’s own locations are the only margin signal in the document, and they are run by the people who wrote the playbook.
The costs, line by line
Gross profit holds at three quarters. Everything else moves.
| Line | Under $600k (32) | $600k–$800k (24) | $800k–$1m (34) | $1m–$1.2m (30) | Over $1.2m (54) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average net sales | $438,063 | $709,978 | $900,152 | $1,092,349 | $1,693,209 |
| Cost of goods sold | $108,561 | $175,740 | $229,071 | $261,612 | $408,870 |
| Gross profit | $329,502 | $534,238 | $671,081 | $830,737 | $1,284,339 |
| Salaries, wages and benefits | $175,680 | $227,353 | $283,901 | $343,212 | $510,520 |
| Retail operating expenses | $123,764 | $155,335 | $198,869 | $259,074 | $336,971 |
| Office and general | $13,365 | $17,238 | $21,960 | $18,643 | $38,149 |
| Earnings before rent | $16,692 | $134,312 | $166,351 | $209,808 | $398,698 |
| Share of sales | 3.8% | 18.9% | 18.5% | 19.2% | 23.5% |
Every figure is as the brand reported it for centers trading the whole of 2025 that supplied complete accounts. The earnings line sits above rent, interest, depreciation and owner pay.
Cost of goods sits between 23.9% and 25.4% at every size. A range of 1.5 points across a fourfold difference in sales. So oil and filters behave like a true variable cost and scale buys next to zero on this line.
Gross profit of roughly 75% is the same at every size too. 75.2%, 75.2%, 74.6%, 76.1% and 75.9%, which means every dollar of margin difference lives below this line, in labor and in the fixed cost of keeping a building open.
Retail operating expenses fall from 28.3% of sales to 19.9%. $123,764 against $336,971, and that line already has royalty and advertising contributions, so the brand charges are inside the fall.
Weighted across all 174 centers, sales average $1,068,198 and earnings before rent $214,009. 20.0% of sales *, and the quarter tables recombine to the same $1,068,198, so the two cuts of this system agree with each other.
The top quartile averages $1,807,546 and the bottom $498,841. 3.6 times, with the highest-selling center at $3,334,527 and the lowest-selling at $264,269 *, a difference of 12.6 times on a single standard format.
The car as the unit
Twelve cars a day or thirty-eight, at much the same price.
| Band | Cars a day | Range | Ticket | Range | One more car a day * |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $600k | 12 | 6 – 19 | $115.49 | $74.94 – $201.86 | $36,495 |
| $600k–$800k | 22 | 10 – 38 | $114.42 | $63.11 – $213.98 | $36,157 |
| $800k–$1m | 25 | 13 – 45 | $120.25 | $70.90 – $203.33 | $37,999 |
| $1m–$1.2m | 25 | 16 – 36 | $135.18 | $89.81 – $197.57 | $42,717 |
| Over $1.2m | 38 | 22 – 81 | $139.09 | $71.29 – $360.34 | $43,952 |
Vehicle counts, ranges and tickets are as the brand reported it and the final column multiplies each group's ticket by the 316 trading days implied by its own sales, volume and price, marked *.
The largest centers serve 3.2 times the cars at a 20% higher ticket. 38 against 12, and $139.09 against $115.49 *, so volume accounts for roughly four fifths of the gap and price the rest.
Weighted across the system, a center serves 26 cars a day at $127. *, which on a three-bay building is about nine cars per bay per day, against 13 at the largest centers and four at the smallest.
A single extra car each day is worth $36,495 at the smallest centers. More than twice their entire annual earnings before rent *, which is the most useful sentence on this page for anyone running one.
The groups overlap heavily on daily volume. A center in the second group can run 38 cars a day, the same as the average in the top group. So days open and ticket mix separate businesses that look identical on a Tuesday morning.
Ticket ranges from $63.11 to $360.34 across the system. A difference of 5.7 times *, far wider than any group averages, so the service mix sold alongside an oil change has real money.
What rent does to it
The earnings line stops above rent, and rent is the whole question.
| Band | Earnings before rent | Months of rent at $6,000 * | Months at $31,250 * | Left after a year at $72,000 * |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $600k | $16,692 | 2.8 | 0.5 | $(55,308) |
| $600k–$800k | $134,312 | 22.4 | 4.3 | $62,312 |
| $800k–$1m | $166,351 | 27.7 | 5.3 | $94,351 |
| $1m–$1.2m | $209,808 | 35.0 | 6.7 | $137,808 |
| Over $1.2m | $398,698 | 66.4 | 12.8 | $326,698 |
The earnings figures are as the brand reported it and the coverage columns apply the filed monthly rent estimates of $6,000 and $31,250 for a three-bay unit, marked *.
At the low rent estimate, a year of trading under $600,000 of sales buys 2.8 months of occupancy cost. $16,692 against $72,000 *, and at the high estimate of $375,000 a year it buys sixteen days.
Above $600,000 of sales, the low rent estimate leaves $62,312 before interest, depreciation and owner pay. *, so the second group is the first one where the model works at all, and only at the cheap end of the rent range.
At the high rent estimate, only the top group clears a full year. $398,698 against $375,000, leaving $23,698 *, which is the argument for owning the site.
Buying the land instead costs $600,000 to $1,500,000 on top of the build. Before site improvements, against a total lease-based investment of $708,057 to $2,284,321, so the two routes converge at the expensive end.
The build is 0.66 to 2.14 times a year of weighted average sales. *, and 1.62 to 5.21 times what a center in the smallest group bills. That is the clearest statement of why the small end of this system struggles.
Fees, territory and the system
Ten and a half percent to the brand, and an address.
| Year | Start | Opened | Terminated | Non-renewed | Ceased, other | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 187 | 17 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 201 |
| 2024 | 201 | 13 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 209 |
| 2025 | 209 | 29 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 233 |
Every column is as the brand reported it and each year's arithmetic returns the filed closing count exactly.
Royalty is 6% of gross revenues with 0.5% to the national fund and 4% spent locally. 10.5% of sales in total, of which the brand keeps 6.5%, $114,487 a year at the largest centers including the point-of-sale fee *.
Franchisees from before May 2022 keep a 5% royalty for as long as their ownership holds. Worth $16,932 a year at the largest centers and $4,381 at the smallest *, and it survives one sale, after which the next buyer pays 6%.
The territory is an address. A Designated Area is used to pick a site and grants zero exclusive rights. The affiliate that runs SpeeDee, Kwik Kar, Uncle Ed’s and American LubeFast may open any of them nearby, including another Grease Monkey.
The affiliate runs 175 company centers against 233 franchised ones. 43% of the branded system, having added 24 of its own across two years. So the brand is a substantial operator in its own right as well as a franchisor.
Fifty-nine of 233 centers are outside the reported figures. 25.3% *, opened mid-year, transferred, or missing complete accounts, and the reasons stay unsplit.
Questions we get asked
Questions an owner asks.
What does a Grease Monkey center bill?
Across 174 centers reporting complete accounts for 2025 the weighted average was $1,068,198 of net sales. By group the averages were $438,063, $709,978, $900,152, $1,092,349 and $1,693,209. The highest-selling center billed $3,334,527 and the lowest-selling $264,269.
What does it earn?
Earnings before rent, interest, depreciation and owner pay were $16,692, $134,312, $166,351, $209,808 and $398,698 by group, 3.8%, 18.9%, 18.5%, 19.2% and 23.5% of sales. Weighted across all 174 that is $214,009, or 20.0%, on our reading. Rent and owner compensation both sit below that line.
Why is the smallest group so much weaker?
Because gross profit holds at roughly 75% at every size while wages take 40.1% of sales at the smallest centers against 30.2% at the largest. Retail operating expenses take 28.3% against 19.9%. A three-bay building and a crew cost much the same whether 12 cars arrive or 38.
What is the unit of volume?
A vehicle. Daily counts average 12, 22, 25, 25 and 38 by group, at tickets of $115.49, $114.42, $120.25, $135.18 and $139.09. On our reading each group trades about 316 days, so one more car a day is worth $36,495 to $43,952 a year depending on ticket.
What does the brand take?
6% of gross revenues in royalty, 0.5% to the national materials fund with a right to double it. A required 4% of monthly gross revenues on pre-approved local advertising. The point-of-sale maintenance fee runs $193 to $369 a month and goes to the vendor. Franchisees from before May 2022 may keep a 5% royalty while their ownership stays intact.
What territory do you get?
An approved location and a Designated Area used only to find it. The exact words are that you will receive an exclusive territory in zero cases. Affiliated brands (SpeeDee, Kwik Kar, Uncle Ed's Oil Shoppe, American LubeFast and others) may operate and solicit within that area, and so may another Grease Monkey.
What does a center cost to build?
$708,057 to $2,284,321 for a three-bay center on a leased site, of which $39,900 to $49,900 goes to the brand. Building work alone runs $350,000 to $1,200,000 and site work $75,000 to $450,000. Buying the land instead costs $600,000 to $1,500,000 before improvements. Estimated rent is $6,000 to $31,250 a month.
Which two numbers should run monthly?
Cars a day against 26, because one more is worth about $40,000 a year and the whole cost structure turns on throughput. And sales against $600,000 a year, because crossing that line converted 43 cents of every extra dollar into earnings across this system.
Questions worth putting to Grease Monkey
The filing answers what it answers. These are the gaps an owner or a buyer should close directly.
- Is the profit figure in Item 19 before or after owner pay, and how many locations sit below it?
- What separates the highest-selling locations from the lowest: trade area, years open, size, or the owner?
- How long does a new location take to reach the average you publish, and what does the build-up look like month by month?
- At what level of sales do the minimum charges stop applying and the percentage take over?
- How many Grease Monkey locations closed, were sold, or changed hands last year, and why?
Run your own numbers.
The Franchise Finance Diagnostic runs the same checks on your own numbers. It scores where you stand and compares you with Item 19 of your brand’s FDD. It works out what one location earns and spends, and builds a 13-week cash forecast. Checks whether you are ready to open another one. It is free and it runs in your browser.
Launch the diagnostic →How many cars is your day holding?
A structured review of your unit economics, cash forecast. Reporting, built around 26 cars a day at $127, the $600,000 line where 43 cents of every extra dollar became earnings. A rent bill the reported margin sits above.
Request the reviewthe franchise library, all 243 brands · how franchise unit economics work · running the books across several locations · what Averan does for franchise owners
Grease Monkey reads against the rest of the other group: Discovery Map · TeamLogic IT.
Questions owners ask next
The figures above raise these, and each one is answered on its own page.
- At what level of sales does a minimum fee stop costing me more than the percentage?How royalty, ad fund and minimums actually work on a monthly statement.
- How much cash do I fund before a new location covers its own costs?A 13-week forecast for the months before break-even.
- My payroll percentage keeps climbing. Is that a payroll problem?Usually it is a revenue problem wearing a payroll costume.
- Revenue was the highest it has been. Why did profit not move?Where the extra revenue went, line by line.
- At what point do spreadsheets stop coping?What changes at around ten units, and why lenders care.