Articles Article
What a franchise actually buys you, and what it costs
Ryan McCoy's $900,000 first year came with a territory someone else had built. What the documented franchisees paid for, what the independents paid instead, and the cost we could not pin down.
The database holds two kinds of franchise story. Four entries are franchisors: Augusta Lawn Care, Scoop Soldiers, 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and 1-800-STRIPER. Two are franchisees: Ryan McCoy, who bought the Dallas territory of Scoop Soldiers, and Joel and Hunter Davis, who opened an America's Swimming Pool Company location in Frisco. Set beside the independents who started the same kinds of work with a few hundred dollars, they show fairly clearly what the franchise fee pays for.
What the cheque buys
Strip away the brochure and a franchise sells four things: a territory, a brand, a way of running the work, and a source of customers. Which of the four matters most depends on whether the territory arrives empty.
McCoy's did not. Scoop Soldiers' model, as co-founder EJ McCoy describes it, is to build a territory corporately, stock it with routes and customers, and then sell it as a running business. Ryan McCoy had managed that same Dallas market as a company employee from 2017. When franchising opened in 2019 he bought it, and within a year he reported more than 1,100 clients and over $900,000 in revenue, per Franchise Times. What he paid for was route density on day one, the asset every independent in this ledger spent years assembling by hand.
The Davises bought a different bundle. Their entry lists brand, training, call-center support and a customer-acquisition system. UpFlip's feature puts the Frisco operation at $851,000 a year in revenue. Their entry is careful to say that is revenue, with the fees paid out of it, and not what the family takes home.
What it costs to get in
The entry figures are public because franchisors must disclose them. The ongoing cost is harder to pin down.
Itemized total per 1851 Franchise and SharpSheets. The franchise fee alone is $39,500 for a single territory. McCoy's entry cites an earlier $61,000 to $111,000.
Initial startup costs as listed by Augusta, per Mike Andes's entry, plus a recommended cash reserve.
Standard franchise, from the April 2025 disclosure document as summarized by PoolDial. A brand fund takes 1 percent of gross revenue on top.
Then there is the royalty, the percentage of gross sales paid every week or month for as long as the agreement runs. It is the cost that compounds, and it is the one we could not pin down. Published summaries of Scoop Soldiers' disclosure documents give different rates for different years, so we have left the figure out rather than print one that may be wrong. Anyone weighing a territory should read Item 6 of the current disclosure document directly, because it is charged on every dollar of revenue for as long as the agreement runs.
What the independents paid instead
The same trades have been entered for far less. Trevor Kokenge started his landscape company in 2008 with $300 of used tools, including a $50 lawnmower, and now reports $22,000 to $29,000 a month at about 30 percent margins. Even Augusta's own history has a cheap version: Andes's entry notes early operators got running with about $9,000 of used equipment, a truck and a mower and no trailer. Brian Winch built his litter business on about $250 of hand tools in 1981 and sells a manual rather than a franchise, with no royalties and no territory fee.
The startup cost ladder lists every documented entry figure. Almost all of the cheapest ones belong to independents. The difference is time. Kokenge's business grew over years. McCoy's revenue was there in the first twelve months, because someone else had built it.
A franchise fee is mostly a price for time. It is worth paying when the territory comes with customers, and much harder to justify when it comes as a map. The pattern in the database
Who the money flows to
The largest figures attached to these systems are systemwide revenue: the combined sales of every franchisee. Augusta reports more than $50 million across more than 200 locations. Scoop Soldiers reported about $1.25 million a month across 96 territories by 2023. 1-800-GOT-JUNK? reports around $600 million. None of those numbers is the franchisor's income, and none is a franchisee's. The revenue ranking flags them for that reason.
What the database does show is where the founders ended up. Luke and Heather Menear painted parking lot lines for two decades, reaching about $739,000 a year, before they began franchising 1-800-STRIPER. Andes started franchising five years after his first season. In each case the franchise came after the owner had a route that worked. It was the second business, selling the system to people who would rather not build one.
How to judge a territory
Three questions do most of the work. First, does the territory come with customers, or only with a boundary? McCoy's year-one figure is the best in the database and the least transferable, because he had already been running that market for two years. Second, what would the same money and two years build independently in this trade? The margin ledger and the pool service and waste category pages give the independent benchmarks. Third, what does the royalty take out of a year of gross sales once the territory is mature? A franchise that halves the time to a full route can be worth its price. One that sells you an empty map at the same price usually is not.
If you are weighing buying an existing independent route instead, buy it or build it covers what the documented buyers got for their money, and the exit ledger shows who buys these businesses at the other end.
Common questions
How much does a pet waste franchise cost?
Scoop Soldiers' itemized initial investment runs $68,600 to $118,800, including a $39,500 franchise fee for a single territory, per summaries of its disclosure document by 1851 Franchise and SharpSheets. An ongoing royalty on gross sales comes on top. The Ryan McCoy entry shows what one territory did in its first year.
Is a franchise better than starting a service business independently?
It depends on what the territory includes. Ryan McCoy bought a Scoop Soldiers territory already stocked with customers and reported over $900,000 in his first year. Many independents in the same database started for under $10,000 and took years to reach comparable revenue, as the startup cost ladder shows. A franchise mainly sells time.
Does systemwide revenue tell you what a franchisee earns?
No. Systemwide revenue is the combined sales of every franchise location. Augusta's $50 million and 1-800-GOT-JUNK?'s $600 million are totals across hundreds of locations, and neither is the franchisor's income or any single owner's take-home.
Built by