Six numbers to track at a franchise location, with FDD medians
Updated 16 October 2026
A KPI, or key performance indicator, is a figure an owner tracks on a schedule to see how a location is doing. The six below come from lines that franchise brands publish in their 2026 Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs). The FDD is the document a franchisor gives a buyer before a sale. Averan read the FDDs of 431 brands. Each comparison figure is the median across the brands that report it, and each worked example uses one brand's own FDD figures.
The six figures
| Figure | How to calculate it | Library median | Brands reporting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales against your brand's median | Your trailing 12 months of sales divided by the median in your brand's FDD | Median is 85.5% of average | 303 |
| Fee load | Royalty, brand fund and every other brand charge, divided by sales | 9.00% | 368 |
| Wages | Wages and payroll taxes divided by sales | 31.73% | 112 |
| Occupancy | Rent and building costs divided by sales | 10.6% | 90 |
| Cost of goods | Product and supply cost divided by sales | 29.10% | 113 |
| Profit margin | Profit as each brand's FDD defines it, divided by sales | 20.90% | 114 |
| EBITDA margin | EBITDA, at the brands whose FDD names the figure EBITDA, divided by sales | 21.80% | 31 |
Compare each figure with your own brand's FDD first. The library median is the second comparison, for brands whose FDD leaves a line out.
i9 Sports publishes five of the six lines. Wages run 28.3% of sales against the library's 31.73%. Occupancy runs 11.0% against 10.6%. Cost of goods runs 29.1% against 29.10%. i9 Sports reports a 25.2% operating profit margin, 4.30 points above the library median profit margin of 20.90%.
Fee load moves with sales
The middle half of brands charge between 7.75% and 10.7% of sales in fees. Fixed fees push the share up at lower sales. The median technology fee is $388 a month across 362 brands, or $4,656 a year. That $4,656 is 1.6% of sales at $300,000 and 0.31% at $1,500,000.
Some brands collect royalty weekly. Club Pilates sweeps its 8% royalty every week from the prior week's gross sales. A weekly sweep means the fee load figure can be checked weekly too.
Best in Class Education Center's fees total 20% of sales in its 2026 FDD. At its average of $223,624, that is $44,725 a year. The library median fee load of 9.00% would be $20,126 on the same sales, so the gap is $24,599 a year.
How far apart locations in one brand sit
Three hundred thirty-nine brands publish a top group and a bottom group by sales. At the median brand, the top group sells 5.50 times what the bottom group sells. For the middle half of brands, that ratio runs from 2.96 to 11.9. A brand-wide average describes few of its real locations, so place your location in its band before you compare costs.
Goldfish Swim School's top group sells $6,383,493 and its bottom group $528,953, a ratio of 12.1. Camp Bow Wow's top group sells $1,480,842 and its bottom group $780,768, a ratio of 1.9. A Goldfish owner reads an average set inside a spread of 12.1 times, and a Camp Bow Wow owner reads one inside a spread of 1.9 times.
A monthly schedule
- Every week: sales against the same week last year, and cash in the bank.
- Every month, after the close: fee load, wages, occupancy, cost of goods and EBITDA margin.
- Every quarter: trailing 12 months of sales against your brand's FDD median and its top and bottom groups.
- Every year, when the new FDD comes out: the brand's updated medians and outlet counts.
The Joint Chiropractic's 2026 FDD includes a profit and loss for 492 clinics, which averaged $578,201 in sales with wages at 47.9%. That is $48,183 of sales a month and $23,080 of wages a month at the average of those clinics. A Joint owner checking wages monthly compares the month's payroll with that $23,080 and with the month's own sales.
Where the figures come from
Only a minority of brands publish each cost line. Wages appear in 112 of 431 FDDs, occupancy in 90 and cost of goods in 113. A brand that publishes sales only gives an owner one comparison line out of six. The other five come from the brand's library category, from current owners, or from the owner's own history.
School of Rock publishes all six comparison lines. Its wages run 14.7% of sales, its occupancy 9.8%, its cost of goods 36.7% and its fees 14%. A School of Rock owner can set every monthly figure against the brand's own FDD, without using the library medians at all.
What this means for an owner
Six figures cover the monthly review: sales against the brand median, fee load, wages, occupancy, cost of goods and EBITDA margin. Each one is a division of a line by sales, so each needs a monthly close to calculate. A brand's top group sells 5.50 times its bottom group at the median brand, so an owner compares costs with locations of the same size. Fixed fees take a larger share of sales at lower volumes. A $4,656 technology fee is 1.6% of $300,000 and 0.31% of $1,500,000.
Check one location
The Franchise Numbers Check is a free tool on this site. It takes one location's figures and sets them against the brand data Averan has published. Each of the 431 brand pages in the Averan Franchise library shows that brand's own figures.
Where to next
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What happens next
Reading about it and having it done are different things. Here is exactly what happens if you want the second one.
- The call takes thirty minutesYou describe the business and where the numbers are letting you down. We give you an expert view of your situation, and what we would start with. There is no pitch deck.
- We look at the fileYou give us read access to the books as they are. We come back with what is wrong, what it will take to fix, and whether the answer is bookkeeping, controller work, or something else.
- We send a written scope and a priceIt lists what we do each month, what you get, the date it lands and the fee. We agree it before anything starts, and it does not change unless you agree.
- We take over the books and close the first monthWe set up access and systems and enter the opening balances. The first close lands on the date in the scope, and every one after it does too.