Labor Finders franchise unit economics
Labor Finders franchisees run a temporary industrial staffing office, carrying the workers on their own wages and invoicing customers for the hours. The royalty is 3.5% of gross customer billings. Before opening, insurance alone costs $30,000 to $40,000, and three months of working capital runs $74,045 to $183,500. The territory is one of the few genuinely exclusive ones in this library.
- Primary source
- Labor Finders International, Inc., 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document
- Items read
- Items 5 and 6 for fees; Item 7 for cost to open; Item 19 for sales and any profit figure
- Population
- 0 of 80 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 franchisee here employs the workers and waits for the customer. Insurance costs $30,000 to $40,000 before the doors open (more than the $20,000 franchise fee) and three months of working capital runs $74,045 to $183,500, most of it wages paid ahead of invoices collected.
- Insurance costs more than the franchise fee. $30,000 to $40,000 against $20,000, 18.8% of the low total investment *, and the largest pre-opening line of all.
- Cash to run the business day to day is about half the whole investment. $74,045 to $183,500 for three months *, 46.4% of the low total and 50.5% of the high *.
- Temporary wages alone is $35,000 to $100,000 a quarter. $140,000 to $400,000 a year at that rate *, paid weekly while customers settle on their own terms.
- The territory is genuinely exclusive. One or more contiguous counties, with the brand and its own subsidiary kept out, and exclusivity has zero sales condition.
- Ninety-nine franchised offices became company-owned in 2023. Which is why the franchised count fell from 184 to 84 in a single year *.
How much does a Labor Finders franchise make?
The 2026 FDD for Labor Finders does not publish unit revenue in a form that answers this directly. What it does publish is set out below, starting with Royalty: 3.5% of gross billings; Insurance before opening: $30,000 to $40,000; Three months of working capital: $74,045 to $183,500; Franchised offices, end 2025: 80.
Top performers
What separates the top Labor Finders performers
Labor Finders publishes no revenue figures, so neither the average nor the spread between locations is disclosed.
Decided before you open
- Capacity, fixed at build.Locations run 1,000 to 1,200 square feet. What you can sell is set by the build, and the build does not change after opening.
- What you spend to open.Opening costs $159,535 to $363,200, a 2.3× 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
- Billed hours, the operating driver.This model bills on billed hours. The owner pays for every hour worked and bills only the hours a client accepts, so the job is to keep those two close and to protect the gap between the rate charged and the rate paid. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites.Fees run about 3.5% 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
- What the disclosure leaves out.Item 19 publishes no profit or cost data for franchised locations, no median, no performance bands, no attainment figure. Anything below the sales line has to come from the franchisor or from owners you call.
- What the rest of the category shows.Across the 4 Staffing brands in this library that do publish bands, the top group sells 7.3× the bottom at the typical brand, and a median 31% of locations reach their own average *. Assume a spread of that order here until the franchisor shows you otherwise.
Funding the wages
Half the money you put in is working capital.
| Item | Low | High | Share of the low total * |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash to run the business day to day, three months | $74,045 | $183,500 | 46.4% |
| Insurance | $30,000 | $40,000 | 18.8% |
| Initial franchise fee | $20,000 | $20,000 | 12.5% |
| Office build-out | $10,000 | $50,000 | 6.3% |
| Professional services | $5,000 | $15,000 | 3.1% |
| Total | $159,535 | $363,200 | n/a |
Every figure is as the brand reported it and the share column divides each line by the filed low total, marked *.
Temporary worker wages are $35,000 to $100,000 of that first quarter. Running at $140,000 to $400,000 a year *, and the office has them on its own wages before the customer pays.
Office staff cost a further $30,000 to $45,000 a quarter. $120,000 to $180,000 annualized *, so the two payrolls together dominate every other cost in the model.
Insurance is the price of employing the workforce. $30,000 to $40,000 before a single hour is billed. The cost that separates this model from an agency that places.
The estimate excludes any salary for the owner and all royalties. So the real three-month requirement sits above $74,045 for anyone who needs to draw.
Premises are 1,000 to 1,200 square feet. In a strip center or similar, with rent of $3,000 to $15,000 across the first three months.
Three and a half percent
The royalty lands on billings.
| Charge | Rate | On $1,000,000 of billings * | On $3,000,000 * |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royalty | 3.5% of sales | $35,000 | $105,000 |
| Software | $125 a month an office | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| Mobile platform | $240 a month an office | $2,880 | $2,880 |
| Advertising fund | Zero | $0 | $0 |
| Local marketing minimum | Zero | $0 | $0 |
| Total | n/a | $39,380 | $109,380 |
The 3.5% rate and the $125 and $240 monthly charges are as the brand reported it and the dollar figures apply them at each billings level for a single office, marked *.
Sales means gross customer billings. Excluding interest, taxes and certain bonuses and transport paid to workers, so the wages inside an invoice are part of the royalty base.
Royalty falls due 45 days after the month of invoicing. Which is a genuinely long term and helps a model where cash goes out weekly and comes in monthly.
Advertising obligations are absent entirely. Zero fund, zero council, zero cooperative and zero required spend. The only advertising figure anywhere is a $1,000 to $5,000 opening estimate.
Technology costs $4,380 a year for each office. *, and it multiplies with offices.
More than three uncured negative reviews can cost $100 a day. Per violation, an unusual charge, and one worth a standing process.
Counties and offices
Counties, and an office for every 500,000 people.
| Term | Detail |
|---|---|
| Territory | One or more contiguous counties, exclusive |
| Development | One office for each 500,000 of population on an additional territory |
| Extra offices | Zero additional franchise fee inside the same territory |
| Site approval | Notification instead of approval |
| Penalty for missing the schedule | Territory reduced to a 10 or 20 mile radius around each open office |
Every term is as the brand reported it. The reduction radius being 20 miles where the original territory held 5 million people or fewer and 10 miles above that.
Exclusivity has zero sales or penetration condition. What it depends on is opening offices to the schedule, so the risk is development.
Missing the schedule shrinks the map. The brand is expressly unable to terminate for late openings, a meaningfully softer remedy than most.
Additional offices inside the territory cost zero franchise fee. So the marginal office is the build cost and the working capital alone.
Locations need notification. Which is rare, and gives real freedom over where inside the county the offices sit.
Soliciting outside the territory is prohibited. Including by internet, catalog, telemarketing and direct marketing, unless the brand consents in writing.
The network of locations
A system that changed hands with itself.
| Year | Start | Opened | Terminated | Reacquired | Ceased, other | End | Company-owned end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 184 | 0 | 0 | 99 | 1 | 84 | 99 |
| 2024 | 84 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 83 | 92 |
| 2025 | 83 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 80 | 86 |
Every figure is as the brand reported it, with 2023 reflecting an affiliate purchase of multiple franchised locations and a reclassification of subsidiary offices as company-owned.
Ninety-nine offices moved to company ownership in one year. Which is 53.8% of the franchised estate at the start of 2023 *.
Company-owned offices have fallen every year since. 99 to 92 to 86, so the combined system is shrinking from both sides.
One office opened across the three years. Against four terminations and two closures, so new franchise development has effectively paused.
The subsidiary operates offices outside franchisee territories. Which is what the exclusivity protects against, and it is expressly excluded from your counties.
Some long-standing owners pay reduced royalties. Including a legacy sliding scale based on billable hours, so the 3.5% applies to new agreements.
Questions we get asked
Questions an owner asks.
What does the brand take?
3.5% of sales, meaning gross customer billings excluding interest, taxes and certain bonuses and transport paid to workers. It falls due 45 days after the end of the month in which you invoiced. Add $365 a month for each office in software and mobile platform fees.
Is there an advertising obligation?
Zero on every count: advertising fund, council, cooperative and required local spend are all absent. The only advertising figure anywhere is a $1,000 to $5,000 estimate for opening.
What does it cost to open?
$159,535 to $363,200, of which $74,045 to $183,500 is three months of working capital, about half the total on our reading. Insurance at $30,000 to $40,000 is the largest single pre-opening line, above the $20,000 franchise fee.
Why is so much of it working capital?
Because the office employs the temporary workers. Their wages are $35,000 to $100,000 across the first three months and office staff another $30,000 to $45,000, all paid before customers settle their invoices.
How exclusive is the territory?
Genuinely exclusive, which is rare. It is one or more contiguous counties, and while you are in compliance the brand keeps itself, its subsidiary and every other franchisee out of it for temporary industrial staffing. Exclusivity has zero sales condition.
What are the development obligations?
Territories above one million people have an opening schedule, and an additional territory requires one office for each 500,000 of population once the schedule is met. Missing it reduces the territory to a radius around each open office.
What does an extra office cost?
Zero additional franchise fee inside the same territory. Locations need notification, so the marginal office is the build-out, the working capital and $365 a month of technology.
Which two numbers should run weekly?
Days between paying wages and collecting invoices, because the whole model is that gap, and gross profit on billings, because the royalty is charged on billings.
- No revenue figures. The filing makes no financial performance representation, so there is no disclosed sales number for any location.
- No profit figure. The filing reports sales and not earnings, so what an owner keeps is not disclosed.
- No cost lines. Wages, rent and cost of goods are not broken out, so margin cannot be rebuilt from the document.
- No range. The filing does not show the highest and lowest locations, so the spread inside the system is unknown.
- No attainment figure. The filing does not say how many locations reached the average it publishes.
- No ramp. The filing does not show how a new location builds up, so the first-year curve has to be assumed.
Questions worth putting to Labor Finders
The filing answers what it answers. These are the gaps an owner or a buyer should close directly.
- What do locations at the median spend on wages and rent as a share of sales? The filing reports sales only.
- What did the highest and lowest locations sell last year, and what explains the gap?
- How long does a new location take to reach the average you publish, and what does the build-up look like month by month?
- What do the fees add up to as a share of sales at the average location, once minimums and technology charges are counted?
- How many Labor Finders 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 long is your cash gap?
A structured review of your unit economics, cash forecast, and reporting, built around a wages paid weekly, invoices collected monthly, and a royalty charged on billings.
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
Labor Finders reads against the rest of the staffing offices group: AtWork Group · Express Employment Professionals · PrideStaff · Spherion.
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.
- How much of Item 19 can I rely on?What a financial performance representation does and does not tell you.
- What should I be looking at every week?The handful of numbers that move before the P&L does.