Articles Ranking
What the owners keep, in dollars: eight profit figures ranked
From more than $15 million on a portfolio of mobile home parks to $82,000 from storage lockers. Eight owners whose figures support a dollar profit, largest first, and the ones left out.
Revenue is the number most owners publish. What they keep is rarer. Eight entries in this database give enough to put a dollar figure on profit or take-home, and this page ranks them, largest first. Six of the eight are our multiplication of an owner's reported revenue and margin, and each row says so.
Read the column as a rough order, not an exact one. The figures come from different years, some margins are gross and some net, and two sources do not say which. Where a range was given, the row shows the midpoint. The margin ledger has the percentages behind each row, and the revenue ranking has the top lines.
Their parks did $30 million of revenue in 2013 with more than half of it profit, as reported. A portfolio of many parks bought over years, not one operator's pay.
Nearly $6 million a year across three locations at margins above 20 percent, per UpFlip. The dollar figure is our multiplication.
About $3 million of revenue by 2015 with margins past 30 percent, up from 10 to 15 percent at purchase. Our multiplication.
Over $2 million a year across four stores at roughly 40 percent margins, as reported. Our multiplication. Their first two stores made about $7,000 a month combined.
$500,000 of 2022 sales, of which he says roughly half is take-home after product, five part-time staff and other costs. Our multiplication.
About $180,000 of 2019 sales at roughly 70 percent margins, before the 2024 sale. The source does not say gross or net. Our multiplication.
$22,000 to $29,000 a month at roughly 30 percent margins, per UpFlip. Annualized and multiplied by us: about $79,000 to $104,000.
Roughly $82,000 of operating earnings on $135,000 of 2025 revenue, from documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The only figure here checked against records.
Left out, and why
Daniel Tom. His page gives a salary of roughly $120,000 against $4.3 million of 2025 income, with the rest reinvested in toilets and trucks. A salary is not the company's profit, and his page does not state a margin, so he is not ranked. His entry has the cost lines he did share.
Alan Tursunbaev. GoDetail reports about $900,000 a year at 60 percent gross margins. Gross margin here is measured before vans, fuel and overhead, so multiplying it out would overstate what Tursunbaev keeps.
Dan Burnside. The roughly $800,000 of seller's discretionary earnings on his entry was the seller's figure, in a deal that ended in fraud and bankruptcy. It shows what he was told, not what the business earned.
Kyle Landwehr and Cristobal Mondragon. Both gave margins for an early stage (about 50 percent gross and 40 to 50 percent) without the revenue for that same stage, so there is nothing to multiply. Ian Hecht's entry once carried a profit figure, which we removed because it did not trace to anything he said.
What the order shows
The top is capital, the bottom is labor. The four largest figures belong to owners who bought or built assets: parks, car washes, a septic company, laundromats. The bottom three sell mostly their own work, from a $1,000 truck to a $10 storage locker. The startup cost ladder shows the same split from the other end.
A high margin on small revenue is a modest living. Evans and Haskell report the two highest percentages in this column and two of its three smallest dollar figures. Our ranking of margins before the first hire explains why those percentages fall once payroll arrives.
Where to go next. Start here sorts the models by capital and hours, and every owner above is in the database with sources. This site is one of SideRoad's weekly builds.
Common questions
Which boring business owner in the database keeps the most profit?
Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds. Their mobile home parks did $30 million of revenue in 2013 with more than half of it profit. Among single operating businesses, the D'Eri family's car washes come next at roughly $1.2 million a year by our multiplication of nearly $6 million at margins above 20 percent.
How much does a small vending route owner take home?
Marcus Gram reported $500,000 of sales in 2022 and says roughly half is take-home after product, part-time staff and other costs, which is about $250,000 by our multiplication.
Why are so few profit figures published for small businesses?
Owners and interviewers usually publish revenue. Only eight of the 33 entries give enough to put a dollar figure on profit, and only Michael Haskell's roughly $82,000 of 2025 operating earnings was checked against documents. Our guide to reading a revenue figure covers the rest.
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