The Lash Lounge franchise unit economics
The Lash Lounge franchisees run an eyelash extension salon of about seven beds, selling lash and brow services largely on recurring monthly memberships. On 2026 figures the 126 salons that traded the full year averaged $566,774, with the top quartile at $926,445 and the bottom at $283,730. Memberships were 48.2% of systemwide revenue.
- Primary source
- The Lash Franchise Holdings, 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; Item 20 for the location count
- Population
- 126 of 132 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.
Across 126 salons, a bed is worth $121,181 a year in the top quartile and $37,831 in the bottom, on bed counts that are practically identical, 7.65 against 7.50. The capacity is the same everywhere. What fills it is time.
- Revenue per bed runs $121,181 in the top quartile and $37,831 in the bottom. On 7.65 beds against 7.50, a 3.2 times output gap from the same physical room count.
- Salons opened 2017 to 2019 average $95,351 a bed; those opened 2023 to 2024 average $44,610. $649,749 of revenue against $364,015, and the newer group runs more beds.
- Zero salons opened in 2023 or 2024 reach the top quartile, and 14 of the 32 in the bottom quartile opened then. 8 salons opened 2019 or earlier sit in the bottom quartile too.
- Memberships are 48.2% of systemwide revenue, $35,479,362 of $73,584,680. Retail products are 2.6% and everything else is 49.2%.
- 4 salons opened in 2025 against 9 departures, taking the network from 137 to 132. After 20 openings in 2024 and 11 in 2023.
How much does a The Lash Lounge franchise make?
The average The Lash Lounge unit reported $566,774 of revenue in the 2026 FDD. 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 8% 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 The Lash Lounge performers
The Lash Lounge splits its locations into groups instead of publishing one average. The best group averaged $926,445 a year. The worst averaged $283,730. Both run the same brand, on the same agreement, paying the same fees.
Decided before you open
- Trade area and site.A 3.3× 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, quoted at 50,000 people. 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 $316,665 to $586,499, a 1.9× 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.
- 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 8.0% 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.
Context you underwrite around
- The reporting screen.126 of 132 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 median, no attainment figure. Anything below the sales line has to come from the franchisor or from owners you call.
Age and the first year
What a salon is worth by the year it opened.
| Opened | Salons | Average revenue | Revenue per bed | Average beds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 to 2019 | 70 | $649,749 | $95,351 | 6.8 |
| 2020 to 2022 | 31 | $542,927 | $68,141 | 8.0 |
| 2023 to 2024 | 25 | $364,015 | $44,610 | 8.2 |
| 2018 alone | 29 | $733,823 | $104,318 | 7.0 |
| 2019 alone | 32 | $588,584 | $86,796 | 6.8 |
| 2024 alone | 15 | $340,404 | $42,199 | 8.1 |
Ours throughout, grouping the filed salon-by-salon table by the opening date it publishes for each salon.
A 2018 salon produces $104,318 a bed and a 2024 salon produces $42,199. Two and a half times, on bed counts of 7.0 and 8.1. So the newer salons were built with more capacity and are filling less of it. Revenue per bed falls in a straight line across every group in the table.
The newest salons are the biggest ones. 6.8 beds on average in the 2007-to-2019 group, 8.0 in 2020 to 2022, 8.2 in 2023 to 2024. Whether that extra capacity earns out is still open, because the only group old enough to answer it were built smaller.
Within a single group, more beds still means more revenue. Among salons opened 2017 to 2019, those with 5 to 6 beds average $562,535, those with 7 to 8 average $703,584 and those with 9 or more average $956,674, at $102,279, $92,974 and $98,966 a bed respectively. So the extra rooms do fill at a mature salon; it is age.
Age sorts the quartiles, and settles very little.
| quartile | Opened 2019 or earlier | Opened 2020 to 2022 | Opened 2023 to 2024 | Median opening year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 24 | 7 | 0 | 2019 |
| 2nd | 21 | 8 | 2 | 2019 |
| 3rd | 17 | 6 | 9 | 2019 |
| 4th | 8 | 10 | 14 | 2022 |
Ours, cross-tabulating the filed salon-by-salon table’s opening dates against the filed quartile boundaries. That our parse reproduces exactly at $926,445, $614,288, $455,358 and $283,730.
Zero salons opened in 2023 or 2024 reach the top quartile. Twenty-four of the thirty-one in that quartile opened in 2019 or earlier. Meanwhile 14 of the 32 salons in the bottom quartile opened in 2023 or 2024. So the bottom of the table is substantially a queue of salons still climbing.
Eight salons opened in 2019 or earlier sit in the bottom quartile. Including one opened in July 2019 with seven beds billing $107,379, and one opened in February 2019 with five beds billing $338,263. Six years of trading and a bottom-quarter result, age raises the odds and decides the outcome for zero of them on its own.
Seven salons opened in 2020 to 2022 already reach the top quartile. Against ten from that group sitting in the bottom. Same three-to-five-year window, opposite ends of the system, operating execution outruns years open once a salon is past its first couple of years.
Fees and what it costs to open
What the fees come to. (Items 5 and 6)
| Level | Revenue | Royalty 6% | Marketing 2% | Local advertising | Total | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highest salon | $1,422,128 | $85,328 | $28,443 | $24,000 | $137,771 | 9.7% |
| 1st quartile average | $926,445 | $55,587 | $18,529 | $24,000 | $98,116 | 10.6% |
| 2nd quartile average | $614,288 | $36,857 | $12,286 | $24,000 | $73,143 | 11.9% |
| All 126, average | $566,774 | $34,006 | $11,335 | $24,000 | $69,341 | 12.2% |
| 3rd quartile average | $455,358 | $27,321 | $9,107 | $24,000 | $60,428 | 13.3% |
| 4th quartile average | $283,730 | $17,024 | $5,675 | $24,000 | $46,699 | 16.5% |
| Lowest salon | $107,379 | $13,000 | $2,148 | $24,000 | $39,148 | 36.5% |
Ours, applying the filed schedule: a 6% royalty on sales, collected monthly with the franchisor reserving the right to collect weekly on 30 days' notice. Subject after the second year of operation to a minimum of $250 a week. Is $13,000 a year and governs below $216,667 of revenue, as it does at the lowest salon shown.
The load runs 9.7% of revenue at the highest salon and 36.5% at the lowest. Almost all of the difference is the $24,000 local advertising minimum landing on a smaller base, at the bottom quartile average it is 8.5% of revenue on its own. At the lowest salon it is 22.4%. A salon at $107,379 is spending nearly a quarter of everything it takes on required local advertising before the minimum royalty.
The minimum royalty bites below $216,667 of revenue. $250 a week, or $13,000 a year, applying from the third year of operation onward. Three salons in the disclosed table bill under that threshold, so for them the royalty stops being a share of sales and becomes a fixed cost.
$24,000 a year of local advertising is required from the month before opening. For the full term of the agreement, with the MarTech fee counted inside it. Against a 2023-to-2024 group averaging $364,015 of revenue, that requirement is 6.6% of the top line during exactly the years when a salon has the least of it.
What it costs to open.
| Line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Building work | $130,000 | $294,967 |
| Initial franchise fee | $50,000 | $50,000 |
| Additional funds, three months | $35,000 | $50,000 |
| Furniture, fixtures, décor and equipment | $20,500 | $52,293 |
| Security deposit and three months of lease payments | $13,731 | $20,408 |
| Marketing, pre-opening and first three months | $11,000 | $25,000 |
| Initial inventory | $11,000 | $20,975 |
| Layout, architect, engineer, drawings and permits | $10,125 | $16,100 |
| Technology hardware and point-of-sale software | $9,716 | $13,575 |
| Signage | $9,393 | $13,181 |
| Initial training fee | $8,000 | $8,000 |
| Training expenses, professional fees, licenses, insurance and utilities | $8,200 | $22,000 |
| Total | $316,665 | $586,499 |
As the brand reported it, except two grouped lines. Are marked *. Pre-opening marketing in the 60 days before opening with marketing for the first three months after. And pre-opening training expenses with first-year professional fees, business licenses and permits, utility deposits for three months and insurance deposits and premiums for three months.
Building work swing $164,967 and are the largest line at both ends. $130,000 to $294,967, 41% of the low total and 50% of the high. On a seven-bed salon that is $18,571 to $42,138 a bed of build cost. Revenue of $37,831 to $121,181 a bed depending on which quartile you land in.
Three months of additional funds is $35,000 to $50,000. Against a 2023-to-2024 group averaging $364,015 a year, or $30,335 a month. A required $2,000 a month of local advertising running from the month before opening. The reserve covers a quarter, and revenue per bed keeps climbing four and five years later.
The whole build costs less than one year of a top-quarter salon's revenue. $316,665 to $586,499 against $926,445. That is an unusually low capital requirement for a bricks-and-mortar service business. It is why the reported range runs as wide as it does. A low-selling location here can stay open a long time.
Revenue per bed
126 salons by quartile.
| quartile | Salons | Average | Median | Highest | Lowest | Average beds | Revenue per bed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 31 | $926,445 | $893,574 | $1,422,128 | $754,508 | 7.65 | $121,181 |
| 2nd | 31 | $614,288 | $614,262 | $737,583 | $514,858 | 7.10 | $86,559 |
| 3rd | 32 | $455,358 | $456,843 | $508,302 | $392,577 | 7.22 | $63,080 |
| 4th | 32 | $283,730 | $301,429 | $391,590 | $107,379 | 7.50 | $37,831 |
| All 126 | 126 | $566,774 | n/a | $1,422,128 | $107,379 | 7.37 | $76,954 |
The quartile revenue, median, high and low figures are as the brand reported it. The bed and per-bed columns are marked *, from the filed salon-by-salon table carrying state, opening date, bed count and total sales for each of the 126.
Bed count changes little, ranked by sales: 7.65, 7.10, 7.22, 7.50. The top quartile has 0.15 more beds than the bottom and produces 3.3 times the revenue. So this is emphatically an utilization business. Every salon in the system has bought roughly the same capacity, and the question is how many hours of it get sold.
A bed produces $121,181 a year at the top quartile and $37,831 at the bottom. $83,350 of difference on each of about seven and a half beds. At the average salon's seven beds and change, closing even a third of that gap is $205,000 of revenue against a whole-system average of $566,774.
The system runs from $1,422,128 down to $107,379. Thirteen times, inside one brand with a 5-to-12-bed range. The bottom quarter's median of $301,429 sits above its average of $283,730. Is what a long tail below the mean looks like, seven salons in the system bill under $200,000 and all seven sit in that quartile.
Where the revenue comes from.
| Source | Revenue | Share |
|---|---|---|
| First-time guests and all other services | $36,195,441 | 49.2% |
| Recurring membership revenue | $35,479,362 | 48.2% |
| Retail products | $1,909,877 | 2.6% |
| Total | $73,584,680 | 100.0% |
As the brand reported it, except the share column, which is marked *.
Membership and non-membership service revenue are almost exactly equal. $35,479,362 against $36,195,441, a difference of 1.0 point. Half of this business renews itself each month and the other half has to be sold again. That makes the mix the single number worth tracking weekly.
Retail is 2.6% of revenue, $1,909,877 across the whole system. On a service where a guest sits for an hour and comes back every few weeks, that is a thin attachment rate. The product line is already paid for. Opening inventory runs $11,000 to $20,975 before a single lash is applied.
The network of locations
The network turned down in 2025.
| Year | Franchised start | Opened | Terminated | Ceased for other reasons | Franchised end | Company | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 117 | 11 | 1 | 2 | 126 | 4 | 130 |
| 2024 | 126 | 20 | 1 | 8 | 137 | 0 | 137 |
| 2025 | 137 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 132 | 0 | 132 |
As the brand reported it.
Openings went 11, then 20, then 4. Departures held at 3, 9 and 9. So 2024 added a net 11 salons and 2025 lost 5. The first contraction in the period, and the pipeline behind it is 11 signed agreements with 2 openings projected for the following year.
The 25 salons opened in 2023 and 2024 average $364,015. That group is a third of the reported base and sits almost entirely in the bottom two quartiles. As it matures the reported averages should rise on their own. As new openings have slowed to 4 a year, there is less new weight coming in to hold them down.
The franchisor exited its own salons entirely during 2024. Four company-owned outlets at the start of the year and zero at the end of it. Every salon in the system is now franchised, so revenue is the only shared yardstick an owner has here.
What territory you get.
The protected area holds up to 50,000 people within a maximum four-mile radius. You select a site inside a designated site selection area within a named metropolitan area, and once the site is accepted the protected area replaces it. Inside that circle the franchisor agrees to keep its own and other franchisees' salons out for the term. The grant is explicitly stated as being other than an exclusive territory, and competition from other channels and brands the franchisor controls is reserved.
Closed markets are carved out of your protected area. Hotels, resorts, airports, public facilities, campuses, military bases and mass gathering venues, anywhere serving a captive market or where lash services may be contracted to a third party. You do get a 30-day right of first refusal on any closed-market location inside your protected area, provided you meet the eligibility requirements and are in good standing.
Relocation needs written consent, granted where the lease ends through circumstances outside your control or the premises are destroyed. On a build costing $130,000 to $294,967 in improvements, that is the clause to read alongside the lease term.
Questions we get asked
Questions owners ask.
What should a salon be billing?
The 126 franchised salons that traded the whole of 2025 averaged $566,774, ranging from $107,379 to $1,422,128. quartile averages were $926,445, $614,288, $455,358 and $283,730, with medians of $893,574, $614,262, $456,843 and $301,429. Those salons average 7.37 beds, so revenue per bed works out at $121,181, $86,559, $63,080 and $37,831 across the four quartiles and $76,954 overall.
How long does a salon take to mature?
Longer than three years. Salons opened between 2007 and 2019 average $649,749 of revenue and $95,351 a bed. Those opened 2020 to 2022 average $542,927 and $68,141. Those opened 2023 to 2024 average $364,015 and $44,610. Zero salons opened in 2023 or 2024 reach the top quartile. Even so, seven salons opened between 2020 and 2022 already sit in the top quartile while ten from the same group sit in the bottom. Eight salons opened in 2019 or earlier sit in the bottom quartile, so years open shifts the odds.
What does the brand cost in total?
A 6% royalty on sales, collected monthly with a right to move to weekly on notice, subject from the third year to a minimum of $250 a week. A 2% marketing fee. And a local advertising requirement of at least $2,000 a month for the full term, beginning the month before opening and including a $185 monthly MarTech fee that may rise to $500. That totals 10.6% of revenue at the top quartile average and 16.5% at the bottom quartile average. Opening costs $316,665 to $586,499 including a $50,000 franchise fee and an $8,000 initial training fee.
How much of revenue should be membership?
48.2% across the system, $35,479,362 of $73,584,680 in 2025. First-time guests and all other services account for 49.2% and retail products 2.6%. That split is systemwide, so treat it as a benchmark for the mix, and plan around the near-even split between recurring and transactional revenue.
Who does bookkeeping for a The Lash Lounge franchise?
Two things make this close specific. First, the systemwide revenue split (48.2% recurring membership, 49.2% other services, 2.6% retail) only becomes useful if your own accounts have the same three buckets. Membership revenue recognized against the month it covers. Unused member credits tracked as a liability. Second, revenue per bed is available for every salon in the system. Makes bed-hours the natural denominator for the whole operating report, revenue per bed, per bed-hour available and per bed-hour booked, read weekly against a system where the number runs from $37,831 to $121,181. Add the $2,000 monthly local advertising requirement, a fixed obligation from the month before opening that wants separating from discretionary marketing. The minimum royalty of $250 a week from year three. Averan provides bookkeeping, controller, and fractional CFO support for franchise owners and has Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on the team.
- No median. Only an average is published, which a few large locations can lift on their own.
- 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 The Lash Lounge
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 The Lash Lounge 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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