Royalties That Are Not a Percentage of Sales

Item 6 of an FDD is the table of other fees: the recurring and occasional payments a franchisee makes to the franchisor or its affiliates after the initial fee. The royalty is usually its first row. The brand pages print the royalty as the franchisor worded it, with the Item 6 page, because the wording is where the differences live.

The common case

Most royalties are a fixed share of sales, paid weekly or monthly. Crumbl: 8% of gross sales, weekly (2026 FDD, Item 6, page 16). Subway: 8% of total gross sales, weekly (page 28). Jersey Mike's: 6.5% of gross receipts, weekly (page 9). Dunkin': a continuing franchise fee of 5.9% of gross sales, weekly (page 36). McDonald's: 5% or 4% of gross sales depending on the circumstances, monthly (page 10), with rent to McDonald's charged separately on sales. What counts as "gross sales" is defined in each agreement and is not identical across brands, but the shape is the same: more sales, proportionally more royalty.

A flat amount

Anytime Fitness charges a monthly fee, currently $842 per month per center, fixed and indexed to CPI, while reserving the right to replace it with up to 8% of gross revenue (2026 FDD, Item 6, page 11). Oxi Fresh charges a royalty fee of $475 per month, flat, payable in advance (page 7). Snap-on has no percentage royalty at all, a monthly license fee of $156 (page 9); its franchisee buys products from Snap-on and resells them, so the franchisor's income is in the wholesale price rather than a royalty. Roto-Rooter charges a monthly franchise fee of $280 to more than $36,000 per month, set by a population formula and adjusted each January for CPI (page 6).

A flat fee is a smaller share of a large unit's sales than of a small unit's. That is what makes it incomparable to a percentage on one line, and why the brand page prints the franchisor's words instead of converting it.

A share of profit or commission

Christian Brothers Automotive takes a continuing royalty fee of 50% of monthly split profits, profit after approved expenses including a $60,000 owner salary (2026 FDD, Item 6, page 8); the franchisor also builds and owns the store real estate and leases it to the franchisee. Brightway Insurance keeps 20% of sales commissions on new business and 50% on renewal business, and the franchisee keeps the rest (page 9). Keller Williams charges a production royalty of 6% of monthly gross commission income plus a profit-sharing contribution from monthly profit (page 20). In each of these the base is not sales, and a percentage of it cannot be read as a percentage of sales.

A charge per student or per clinician

Eye Level Learning Center charges a monthly royalty of $42 down to $33 per subject-student by enrollment band, plus $15 per new enrollment (2026 FDD, Item 6, page 14). Ellie Mental Health charges a qualified clinician system fee of 7.5% of collected revenue per clinician (3.95% in seven states), capped at $1,000 a month per clinician, with a matching prescriber fee capped at $3,000 (page 17). A cap turns a percentage into a flat amount once a clinician collects enough, so the effective rate falls as the unit grows.

A sliding scale or a tier

Penn Station's royalty rises with monthly net sales: 2% below $30,000 a month, a point more per $5,000 band, to 8% above $55,000 (2026 FDD, Item 6, page 7). H&R Block's runs the other way: 60% of the first $5,000 of each calendar year's revenue from authorized services (50% if paid within four days of the reporting period) and 40% of revenue above $5,000 (page 9). Weed Man charges 7% of net sales with a minimum of $7,389.18 a year per unit territory (page 6). Stanley Steemer charges 7% of gross sales from core business and 3% from related business, plus an additional royalty of 0% to 3% (page 13). Where a brand record carries one named rate for a scale, the page says which band it is and prints the scale in the text.

What this guide does not cover

Item 6 holds more than the royalty: advertising fund contributions, technology fees, transfer and renewal fees, and the rest. The brand page prints the advertising fund line and leaves the others to the filing. The guide also does not compute an effective royalty for any brand, because that would need a unit's sales, and Item 19 is a median across a sample, not a unit.

The brand index opens each brand page, where the royalty appears under "What a unit pays the franchisor" with its Item 6 page and the franchisor's note.

Sources

• 16 CFR 436.5(f), Item 6: Other fees
• The 2026 FDDs of the brands named, as filed with Wisconsin DFI, Item 6 pages as cited, via Wisconsin DFI Franchise Search.

This guide is informational only. It is not financial, legal or investment advice, and Unitnomics is not affiliated with any franchisor, state regulator or the FTC. It reports what a franchisor filed and what the site computed from it; it does not advise on whether to buy a franchise.

Last reviewed: November 2026 · Against 16 CFR 436.5(f) and the 2026 FDDs cited below.