Where the number comes from
Item 19 is the only place a franchisor may make a financial performance claim, and it is optional. A brand that publishes one must have a reasonable basis for it and must show its work: which units, which period, which definition of revenue. A brand that skips Item 19 is forbidden from quoting earnings anywhere — in its brochures, at discovery day, or across the table from you. That rule is why the AUV on a brand page of ours always carries the filing year next to it: the number is a claim from a specific document, not a fact of nature.
Average is not typical
The arithmetic problem first. An average is pulled upward by outliers, and franchise systems always have them — the airport location, the twenty-year operator, the unit in the perfect trade area. The result: in most systems, the median unit grosses less than the average unit. The better filings publish both, sometimes with quartiles. When a brand shows you only the mean, the polite assumption is that the median was less flattering.
The selection problem second — and it is the bigger one. The franchisor defines the cohort behind the average, and common definitions quietly exclude weak units: only units open the entire fiscal year (drops new openings and mid-year closures), only company-owned units (often the strongest), or only units reporting full data. None of this is illegal; all of it is disclosed in the fine print under the table. The cohort definition is the first thing to read in any Item 19, before the number itself.
Sales are not profit
AUV is the top line. The recurring fees in Item 6 come off it before rent, labor, or food cost. Take the 2026 filing for Jersey Mike’s Subs: a $1.37M AUV with a 6.5% royalty and a 1% ad fund. At the average, a franchisee sends roughly $103K a year to the system before paying a single employee. The unit can still be an excellent business — but the distance between $1.37M of AUV and the operator’s income is the entire operating statement, and the FDD does not have to show it to you.
Why an AUV only means something in context
| Brand | AUV (Item 19) | Item 7 range | Royalty + ad fund |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jersey Mike’s Subs (2026) | $1.37M | $436K–$1.16M | 6.5% + 1% |
| Tropical Smoothie Cafe (2026) | $978K | $276K–$771K | 6% + 6% |
| Smoothie King (2026) | $662K | $320K–$1.30M | 6% + 3% |
Ranked by AUV alone, Jersey Mike’s wins. Ranked by sales earned per dollar of startup cost, Tropical Smoothie’s tighter Item 7 range makes its $978K look different. And the spread in ad funds — from 1% to 6% of gross — changes what each dollar of sales actually yields. AUV is one column of a table, never a verdict — which is why our comparison pages show these figures side by side instead of crowning a number.
How to read an Item 19 properly
- Find the cohort. How many units are in the calculation, out of how many in the system? A 2,600-unit brand averaging 400 units is telling you about a subset.
- Look for the median. If it is published, compare it to the mean; a wide gap means a long tail of modest units.
- Check the trend.Each annual filing restates the figure. An AUV that climbs across filings while unit count grows — as the filings show at Jersey Mike’s, up 8.3% in units year over year — reads very differently from one propped up by closures removing weak units from the average.
- Match the cohort to your plan. If the average leans on mature or company-owned units, your first two years will not look like it.
- Cross-check against Item 7. Revenue claims only matter relative to what entry costs — our Item 7 guide covers that table.
Every brand page in our directorycarries the filed AUV with its filing year, next to the investment range and fee stack from the same document — the context the headline number needs. If a brand’s page shows no AUV, that is disclosure too: the filing made no claim, and you should ask why.