Take 5 vs Valvoline franchise: $1.33M and $1.89M Item 19 medians both come from corporate stores. Real costs, royalty math, and the franchisee numbers.
Quick answer Valvoline's 2025 FDD discloses a $1,894,490 median across 785 centers and Take 5's discloses $1,327,808 across 298, but both samples are corporate stores. Only Valvoline also publishes franchisee results: a $1,704,870 median net sales across 891 franchised centers, reported in Section B of Item 19.
Valvoline Instant Oil Change discloses a $1,894,490 median. Take 5 Oil Change discloses $1,327,808. Set those beside each other and Valvoline looks like it earns 43% more per center.
Neither figure came from a franchisee.
Valvoline’s is the median gross sales of 785 comparable company-operated centers in fiscal 2025. Take 5’s covers 298 affiliate-owned centers across its 2024 fiscal year. Both systems are heavily corporate: Valvoline runs 976 company centers against 1,071 franchised, and Take 5 runs 710 against 432. A buyer placing those two figures side by side is comparing two sets of corporate stores, neither of which pays a royalty, and one of which sits on leases the franchisor itself flags as below market.
| Dimension | Take 5 Oil Change | Valvoline Instant Oil Change |
|---|---|---|
| FDD year | 2025 | 2025 |
| Franchised units | 432 | 1,071 |
| Company-operated units | 710 | 976 |
| Initial fee, first center | $45,000 | $30,000 |
| Royalty | 7% of gross sales | 2%, then 3%, then 4% to 6% of AGR |
| Marketing | 5% of gross sales | Up to 2% system fund plus 3% local minimum |
| Item 7, conversion or leased | $287,145 to $1,013,587 | $192,375 to $639,550 |
| Item 7, ground-up or purchased | $912,248 to $2,053,642 | $1,773,750 to $3,483,550 |
| Item 19 headline sample | 298 affiliate-owned centers | 785 company-operated centers |
| Franchisee revenue disclosed | No | Yes, 891 centers in Section B |
| Agreement term | 15 years | 15 years |
The exclusions define the sample. Take 5 pulled out 341 acquired centers, 69 ground-up locations open less than a full year, two reacquired from franchisees, and four that closed. What remains is 298 affiliate-owned sites open at least twelve months.
To its credit, Take 5 does not present that as a franchisee outcome. Item 19 carries a Franchisee Adjusted Income Statement that loads royalty, marketing fund contributions, point-of-sale fees, higher cost of goods, and insurance onto the affiliate results. The median center clears $340,178 in four-wall EBITDA on $1,327,808 of gross sales, a 25.6% margin.
The distribution is more useful than the midpoint. The bottom half of the sample medians at $949,290 and the top half at $1,703,407. The weakest site did $190,365; the strongest did $3,474,051. That 18x range inside one brand is why a single figure tells you almost nothing about the location you are being offered, and our post on average versus median in Item 19 covers how the spread gets flattened.
One footnote does more damage than the rest of the item. Median occupancy in the adjusted statement is $97,119, and Take 5 writes that those averages “may not reflect current market rates given how long our affiliate has had some of these leases in place.” A franchisor flagging its own rent line as understated has handed you the variable that decides whether $340,178 of EBITDA survives your lease.
Section A is what gets quoted, including by most franchise directories and by our own database. Section B, further down the same item, reports fiscal 2025 net sales across 891 comparable franchisee-operated centers: a $1,704,870 median, a $1,844,172 average, and a range from $397,215 to $5,728,187.
Read like against like and the framing inverts. Valvoline’s company stores posted a $1,592,280 median net sales that same year. Its franchisees posted $1,704,870, out-earning corporate by about 7%, which runs against the pattern buyers are usually told to expect.
Two cautions before anchoring on it. Section B reports net sales, taken after coupons, discounts, fleet pricing, and refunds, and Valvoline’s own table shows net sales landing roughly 16% below gross. Take 5’s $1,327,808 is gross, so the two are not directly comparable and the true gap is wider than the headlines suggest. Section B also carries no cost data at all: a revenue line and nothing underneath it, which is the mirror image of Take 5’s problem. One brand gives you a full income statement for the wrong stores, the other gives you a single line for the right ones. The Valvoline Item 19 deep dive works through Section A in detail.
Comparing quick-lube brands seriously? Put both FDDs side by side on fees, unit counts, and disclosed economics in our franchise comparison tool before you take either discovery day.
Valvoline’s license fee circulates as $5,000 across franchise directories. Item 5 of the 2025 FDD is more specific. Your first center costs $30,000, half at signing and half when the first royalty payment comes due. A second ground-up build is $20,000. A second center converted from a qualifying existing quick lube is $5,000, as is any third, and $5,000 per site is also the rate under a development agreement.
That $5,000 is a multi-unit developer’s price. Valvoline has set its second and third stores at a sixth of the first, a deliberate signal about the buyer it wants: operators who will convert existing lube shops and sign development schedules. Take 5 posts a flat $45,000, though its Item 5 discloses franchisees actually paid between $0 and $35,000 during fiscal 2024, which tells you the number moves.
Take 5 takes 7% of gross sales and a 5% marketing fund contribution. Twelve points off the top before rent. On the median center’s $1,327,808 that came to $92,947 in royalty and $66,390 to the fund.
Valvoline steps its royalty in: 2% of adjusted gross revenue for the first twelve months, 3% for the second twelve, then either 6% or a graduated 4% to 6% depending on combined revenue across your locations. Item 19 discloses that 95% of franchise centers paid 4% in the prior year. Add a general system fund capped at $7,344 per site for fiscal 2026 and a 3% local advertising minimum, and a mature Valvoline operator pays about seven points all in.
Five points of gross sales on a $1.3M store is roughly $66,000 a year. Across a 15-year term that gap dwarfs the difference in franchise fees, and it is the number to model first.
Both franchisors publish two Item 7 tables, one per build path. Directories take the lowest number from one table and the highest from the other, then print the result as a single span. No buyer faces that span, because the two endpoints belong to different projects.
Take 5’s $287,145 low end is a conversion of an existing quick lube. Its $2,053,642 high end is a ground-up build. Both totals explicitly exclude real estate. Valvoline’s $192,375 assumes you lease land and signage for three months; the $3,483,550 assumes you buy the land and build, with land and improvements alone running $1,550,000 to $2,750,000.
Read table against table instead. Converting an existing shop puts Take 5 at $287,145 to $1,013,587 and Valvoline at $192,375 to $639,550. Building new, Take 5 runs $912,248 to $2,053,642 before any land cost while Valvoline runs $1,773,750 to $3,483,550 including it. Your build path moves the capital requirement more than your choice of brand does. Spliced ranges are one of the Item 7 and Item 19 traps worth checking on any brand, and the wider auto repair franchise shortlist shows how common the pattern is.
From Take 5, ask for the 69 ground-up locations excluded from Item 19 for being open under a year. Their ramp curve is what a new franchisee actually needs, and it is the one thing deliberately absent. Then ask what occupancy the franchisor would model on a lease signed this year rather than one an affiliate signed years ago.
From Valvoline, ask for Section B broken out by cohort and market, and what the 172 centers excluded from the fiscal 2025 franchisee sample were doing. Ask which royalty tier your projected volume lands in, since the spread between 4% and 6% on $1.7M is $34,000 a year, every year. Both franchisors owe you written substantiation on request, and Valvoline says so in Item 19. Our guide to verifying Item 19 claims has the language to use.
Valvoline is the better-disclosed of the two by a wide margin, publishing franchisee revenue across 891 centers where Take 5 publishes none. Whether that produces a better store in your market is a question no FDD can answer. It does decide which one you can underwrite before signing, and on a 15-year agreement that is worth more than the 43% headline gap you started with. Our full FDD analysis runs both brands item by item.
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take 5 vs valvoline franchiseoil change franchise costTake 5 Oil ChangeValvoline Instant Oil Changequick lube franchiseitem 19automotive franchise
About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
Take 5's 2025 FDD publishes two Item 7 tables, both excluding real estate. Converting an existing quick lube runs $287,145 to $1,013,587; a ground-up center runs $912,248 to $2,053,642. The franchise fee is $45,000, though Item 5 discloses franchisees paid $0 to $35,000 in fiscal 2024.
Valvoline also publishes two tables. Leasing land and signage totals $192,375 to $639,550. Buying the real property totals $1,773,750 to $3,483,550, with land and improvements alone at $1,550,000 to $2,750,000. The license fee for your first center is $30,000.
On comparable disclosure, Valvoline. Its franchisee-operated centers posted a $1,704,870 median net sales in fiscal 2025 across 891 locations. Take 5 publishes nothing for franchisees; its $1,327,808 median is affiliate-owned gross sales. One figure is net and the other gross, so the real gap is wider than it looks.
Directories pick up the wrong line from Item 5. The license fee is $30,000 for your first center, half at signing and half when the first royalty payment is due. A second ground-up center costs $20,000. The $5,000 rate covers a converted second center, any third center, and development-agreement sites.
Not directly. Take 5's sample is 298 affiliate-owned centers, and the franchisor notes its occupancy may sit below market because of how long those leases have run. Valvoline's headline sample is 785 company-operated centers that pay no royalty and whose expense lines exclude operating leases. Section B is the only franchisee-sourced revenue either brand discloses.
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