SweatHouz franchise unit economics
SweatHOUZ franchisees run a private contrast-therapy studio, infrared sauna and cold plunge in individual suites, on a membership model. Studios open the full year averaged $848,984 of gross sales with a median of $894,360.
- Primary source
- LS Franchisor LLC, 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
- 28 of 66 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.
Your studio reaches its run rate in about four months, and after that the calendar moves your revenue more than your years open does. May runs half again ahead of July. Open in November and your first six months will read like a rise that is really just winter. Open in April and July will read like a failure that is really just July. Judge yourself against the same month a year earlier. Remember the system is opening four to seven studios a month. So the market you price against is moving too.
- You reach run rate in four months, and then the build-up is over. $35,923 in month one and $70,377 by month four; months five to twelve stay inside a narrow group.
- May runs half again ahead of July at the same studio. A $31,625 swing on the same staff and the same rent, and January runs below average, so the strong season is spring.
- Past month four, judge yourself against the same month last year. The seasonal swing is wider than the whole back half of the build-up, so month-to-month movement shows very little.
- The top studio bills $1,534,517 against a median of $894,360. The median sits above the average, so a weak tail is pulling the average down.
- Your royalty rises as your growth flattens. It starts at 6% of gross sales and steps to 7% and then 8%, on top of a 3% brand fund and $1,250 a month.
How much does a SweatHouz franchise make?
The average SweatHouz unit reported $848,984 of revenue in the 2026 FDD, and the median reported $894,360. The brand’s disclosure document discloses revenue and not profit, so what an owner keeps depends on the cost structure set out below. Fees come off the top first, at about 11% 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.
How the business works
The shape of a SweatHouz year.
Every studio’s month-by-month sales are on file, so the seasonal pattern can be measured. We built the index below from the 28 franchised studios that traded cleanly through all of 2025, excluding part-year openings and remodel months.
| Month | Index | Month | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 0.905 | July | 0.809 |
| February | 1.068 | August | 0.907 |
| March | 1.094 | September | 0.862 |
| April | 1.003 | October | 0.843 |
| May | 1.256 | November | 1.185 |
| June | 0.876 | December | 1.192 |
Each studio's twelve months were divided by its own monthly average. The resulting ratios averaged across the 28 studios. So the index describes shape instead of level. A studio of any size can be read against it.
How we calculated this
1.000 means that month runs at the studio's own annual monthly average.
You sell heat into cold weather and into the spring, and you struggle through high summer. Your best month and your worst run a factor of 1.55 apart, so your annual average conceals what any given month's bank balance looks like. Build your cash plan around the July-to-October stretch and bank the spring.
What the swing is worth in dollars. An average studio here billed $70,749 a month across 2025. Through the index, May comes out at $88,861 and July at $57,236, a $31,625 gap on the same staff and the same rent. That is what your thirteen-week forecast exists to absorb. Ours, from the disclosed monthly figures.
January runs below the annual average here, and February and March both beat it. Staff up for spring.
Four months to run rate.
This is a real first year, followed month by month, 22 franchised studios that opened during 2024 and traded cleanly through their first twelve months.
| Month | Average | Median | Month | Average | Median |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $35,923 | $35,832 | 7 | $74,044 | $74,220 |
| 2 | $60,961 | $56,843 | 8 | $76,212 | $73,803 |
| 3 | $66,203 | $63,218 | 9 | $68,833 | $69,092 |
| 4 | $70,377 | $69,690 | 10 | $70,399 | $68,696 |
| 5 | $71,464 | $72,647 | 11 | $67,446 | $68,755 |
| 6 | $71,305 | $68,134 | 12 | $66,751 | $69,442 |
Month 1 is the first calendar month with sales, which for most of these studios is a partial month.
You open at about half of where you will settle, and you get there by month four. After that the line is flat, months five through twelve stay inside a narrow group.
Which matters because that group is narrower than the seasonal swing. From month four on, what month it is affects your revenue more than how long you have been open. So stop reading month-to-month movement as progress or decline. Compare each month to the same month a year earlier. Use the seasonal index above to tell you whether a soft month is your studio or just the calendar.
Top performers
What separates the top SweatHouz performers
SweatHouz splits its locations into groups instead of publishing one average. The best group averaged $1,534,517 a year. The worst averaged $506,590. Both run the same brand, on the same agreement, paying the same fees.
Decided before you open
- Trade area and site.A 3.0× gap between bands is not an operating gap. Catchment, daytime population and what sits next door set the ceiling before the first customer arrives.
- Capacity, fixed at build.capacity is 28 studio floor multiplied by hours multiplied by how full they run. What you can sell is set by the build, and the build does not change after opening.
- What you spend to open.Opening costs $631,798 to $1,314,102, a 2.1× 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
- Members, the operating driver.This model bills on members. The owner watches how many people join, how many cancel, and what a member spends beyond the plan. 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 11.0% 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.
- The first year.This filing shows how a new location builds up, so the ramp can be underwritten from the document rather than assumed. Read two things out of it: the month sales cross the point where costs are covered, and how much cash you fund before that month arrives. Everything before break-even is paid for by you.
Context you underwrite around
- The reporting screen.28 of 66 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 profit or cost data for franchised locations, 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.
How much locations differ
The range across mature studios.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Average annual gross sales | $848,984 |
| Median annual gross sales | $894,360 |
| Lowest studio | $506,590 |
| Highest studio | $1,534,517 |
Summed from the disclosed monthly figures for the 28 franchised studios open and unremodeled for all of 2025.
The middle studio here out-earns the average one by $45,376, which is the reverse of what most systems show. It means the average is being held down by a handful of weak studios. So the typical outcome sits nearer the top of the range than the average suggests.
Budget for the refit before you need one.
Studios that were remodeled show it plainly: three or four consecutive months at somewhere between a tenth and a quarter of normal trade, then a recovery. One location ran about $5,000 to $15,000 a month through its refit against a normal run rate above $45,000.
That is our reading of those months, but the implication is worth pricing in. A refit costs you most of a quarter's sales, and you keep paying the franchisor throughout.
What the money side covers
The royalty escalates.
| Fee | Amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty | 6% of Gross Sales, rising to 7% and then 8% | Percentage, paid weekly |
| Brand Fund | 3% of Gross Sales | Percentage, paid weekly |
| Technology Fee | $1,250 per month | Flat |
| Temporary closure royalty | $750 per week | Flat, only while temporarily closed |
As the brand reported it.
Your royalty goes up as your growth flattens out. You start at 6% plus the 3% brand fund, and by the time you are at a stable run rate you are paying 8% plus 3%. Build the step-ups into your model from year one. They arrive when the revenue line has stopped helping you absorb them.
And note the $750 a week you owe while temporarily closed. Between that and the $1,250 monthly technology fee, your fixed obligations run right through July while your sales sit a fifth below par. That is why a thirteen-week cash forecast earns its keep in this model more than in a flatter one.
Questions we get asked
How seasonal is a SweatHouz studio?
Very. Your best month will run about half again ahead of your worst. May is the peak, with November and December close behind; July is the trough, with September and October nearly as weak. January runs below average, so plan your strong season around spring.
How long does a new studio take to build-up?
About four months. You open around $35,900 and reach roughly $70,400 by month four, then flatten. Because that flat group is narrower than the seasonal swing, once you are past month four you should judge yourself against the same month last year.
What does a mature studio do in a year?
The middle studio did $894,360 and the average $848,984, with a range from $506,590 to $1,534,517. Both figures are marked *, summed from the per-location monthly figures. The median sitting above the average means a weak tail is pulling the average down. So the median is the fair benchmark. At $1,534,517, the top of the range shows what a strong site and a full book actually produce.
Does SweatHouz disclose profitability?
Sales alone, with labor, rent, utilities and owner earnings all withheld. That gap matters more here than in most concepts. That is because saunas and cold plunges have an utility bill well above an ordinary service business, and it stays unquantified. Ask existing franchisees what theirs runs.
Who does bookkeeping for a SweatHouz franchise?
Two things are harder than they look. The cash you collect in a strong month is partly service you owe in a weak one. With a swing this wide, booking it on arrival makes May look far better and July far worse than either is. And your royalty steps from 6% to 8% over the term, so books that hard-code one rate understate the liability.
Second, your royalty rate changes over the term, so books that hard-code 6% understate the liability from the day it steps up. Put the seasonality together with fixed costs that run right through the trough (technology fee, rent, utilities) and a thirteen-week cash forecast earns its place. Averan provides bookkeeping, controller, and fractional CFO support for franchise owners and has Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on the team.
- 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 attainment figure. The filing does not say how many locations reached the average it publishes.
Questions worth putting to SweatHouz
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 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 SweatHouz 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.
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