How Averan reads a Franchise Disclosure Document
Every figure on a brand page comes from that brand's own 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document. This page sets out which parts we read, what we calculate ourselves, and what we leave alone.
Which documents, and which parts of them
We read the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document for each of the 243 brands in the library. A Franchise Disclosure Document is the filing a franchisor must give a buyer before they sign, and it is public in the states that require registration.
Five items carry almost everything on a brand page. Item 5 and Item 6 list the fees, both the ones paid up front and the ones paid every month. Item 7 estimates what it costs to open. Item 19 is the financial performance representation, which is where any sales or profit figure comes from. Item 20 counts the locations, including the ones that opened, closed, or changed hands.
A brand page cites the item beside the table it came from, so a reader can check the original.
What the brand reported, and what we worked out
Anything the franchisor published is presented as they published it. Anything we calculated is marked on the page with an asterisk and the words "Averan calculation".
The calculations are simple on purpose. We divide a disclosed cost by disclosed sales to get a share. We divide the top band by the bottom band to get the spread. We multiply a fee rate by disclosed sales to show what it costs in dollars. We do not model, forecast, or adjust a franchisor's figures.
Where a filing reports bands, such as quartiles or quintiles, we keep the brand's own grouping rather than recutting it. Where a filing reports only an average, we say so rather than inferring a distribution.
How the medians across brands are taken
Category and subcategory pages carry medians. Each one is taken across the brands in that group that disclose the figure, and the count is shown beside it. When a page says wages run a median 39.8% of sales across four brands, it means four of the brands in that group published a wage figure, not that the other brands pay nothing.
Disclosure is uneven, and that is itself a finding. Of the 243 brands, 209 publish average sales, 176 publish a median, 211 publish bands, 142 publish how many locations reach the average, 60 publish a profit line, and 55 publish what wages cost.
What we exclude
We do not include figures from a franchisor's recruitment site, a broker, a press release, or a third-party ranking. If it is not in the filing, it is not on the page, and where the filing is silent the page says so.
We do not estimate what a location earns when the filing does not disclose it. A brand that publishes no revenue figure gets a page that says exactly that.
Company-owned locations are labeled as company-owned wherever a franchisor reports them alongside franchised ones. They are run by the people who wrote the playbook, and they are usually few and usually mature, so they are read as a ceiling rather than a forecast.
Dates and updates
Each brand page names the filing it was read from and the date the page was last updated. A Franchise Disclosure Document is filed annually, so a figure describes the fiscal year the franchisor reported, not the year you read it. The library moves to the 2027 filings as they are registered.
If a figure on any page is wrong, tell us and we will correct it and note the correction on the page. Averan is not affiliated with any franchisor, is not a CPA firm, and does not sell franchises.
What these pages are not
They are an educational summary of a disclosure document. They are not an offer to sell a franchise, not financial, legal or tax advice, and not a projection of what any particular location will earn. Past performance at other businesses is what a Franchise Disclosure Document reports, and that is all it reports.
Source: the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Documents of 243 brands. Averan Advisors is not affiliated with any franchisor. Brand names are the trademarks of their owners.