Articles Ranking
Revenue per location, ranked: eight businesses divided by their doors
From about $2 million per car wash to about $17,000 per vending placement. What one more store, territory or placement brings in, for the eight businesses that publish both numbers.
Revenue per location is the figure an owner weighs before opening the next door: what one more store, wash, territory or placement is likely to bring in. Eight businesses in this database publish both a revenue figure and a location count from the same period, and this page ranks them, largest first. Five of the eight rows are our division or annualizing of reported figures, and each says so.
Read the column as a rough order. A car wash, a franchise territory and a vending placement are different things to call a location, and two rows are system averages that include sites still ramping up. All of them are revenue, not profit. The revenue ranking has the top lines these come from.
Nearly $6 million a year across three Florida locations, per UpFlip. Divided by three, by us.
Over $900,000 and 1,100 clients within a year in one Scoop Soldiers territory, before his later merger. One territory, so no division.
$851,000 a year from one America's Swimming Pool Company franchise in Frisco, per UpFlip. Revenue, not take-home.
Over $2 million a year across four Queen City Laundry stores, with about $2.3 million in our dataset. Divided by four, by us.
About $24,000 a month from one 40-machine store, per CNBC Make It. Annualized by us.
Systemwide revenue above $50 million across more than 200 locations. Our division of two rounded figures.
About $1.25 million a month in 2023 across 96 franchised territories counted that year. Annualized and divided by us.
Over $58,000 a month from 100-plus machines at more than 40 locations. Annualized and divided by us. A location here is a placement, not a store.
Left out, and why
1-800-GOT-JUNK? Around $600 million of systemwide revenue across more than 100 markets, per Brian Scudamore's entry. A market can hold several franchise units, so dividing by markets would not give a figure comparable to the rows above.
Bolt Storage and MHP Funds. Huber and Hagberg have not disclosed revenue for their 68 facilities. Frank Rolfe and Dave Reynolds reported $30 million in 2013, but the 250-plus community count is current, and dividing one year's revenue by another year's portfolio would mislead.
Bumble Bee. Cristobal Mondragon reports $120,000 to $140,000 a month across Seattle and Atlanta without a split between the two markets.
What the order shows
Revenue per site tracks what the site costs. The startup cost ladder puts an express car wash at $1.5 million to $4 million, a laundromat at $85,000 to $600,000, a pool route at $15,000 to $40,000 and a vending machine at $1,000 to $10,000. The column runs in nearly the same order. A vending placement brings in little on its own because it costs almost nothing to add, which is how Hill reached more than 40 of them from one truck.
The two single franchisees beat their systems' averages by a wide margin. McCoy's one territory did over $900,000 in a year against a Scoop Soldiers average near $156,000. Part of that is McCoy: he had managed the Dallas market for two years before buying it, and Scoop Soldiers builds territories corporately before selling them. Part is the average itself, which counts territories that opened recently. Augusta added 87 locations in its first two and a half years of franchising, and young locations pull an average down. Our piece on what a franchise buys covers the fees behind those territories.
Where to go next. The companion article, what changed when owners opened another location, covers how each owner added sites. The Boring Index scores every trade above, and the database has the sources. This site is one of SideRoad's weekly builds.
Common questions
How much does one car wash location bring in?
Rising Tide reports nearly $6 million a year across three Florida car washes, which is about $2 million per location by our division. An express wash costs $1.5 million to $4 million to open, per the startup cost ladder.
How much does a single laundromat make?
Christian Sanya's 40-machine store in Lanham, Maryland brings in about $24,000 a month, roughly $288,000 a year annualized. Dave and Carla Menz report over $2 million across four Cincinnati stores, about $575,000 per store by our division.
Do franchise territories earn the system average?
Not in the two cases documented here. Ryan McCoy's single Scoop Soldiers territory did over $900,000 in a year, against a system average near $156,000 by our division of 2023 figures. McCoy had managed the market before buying it, and system averages include recently opened territories.
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