Valvoline Instant Oil Change Item 19: franchisee-operated centers post a $1,704,870 median net sales across 891 units, above the 785 company-operated centers at $1,599,409.
Quick answer Valvoline's Item 19 has two sections. Section B discloses 891 comparable franchisee-operated centers with median net sales of $1,704,870 in fiscal 2025. Section A's 785 company-operated centers post $1,599,409. Franchisees out-earn company stores by 6.6%. The license fee is $30,000 for your first center.
Almost every summary of Valvoline’s earnings disclosure quotes a single company-operated number. The FDD actually runs two labeled sections, and the franchisee section is further down the page.
Here is fiscal 2025, both sections, on the same measure:
| Fiscal 2025, net sales per center | Company-operated (Section A) | Franchisee-operated (Section B) |
|---|---|---|
| Comparable centers | 785 | 891 |
| Median | $1,599,409 | $1,704,870 |
| Average | $1,677,087 | $1,844,172 |
| Low | not disclosed at all-centers level | $397,215 |
| High | $3,659,964 | $5,728,187 |
Franchisee-operated centers post a median 6.6% above the company-operated network, on a larger sample, in the same fiscal year. That runs against the usual pattern, and it is disclosed in plain text rather than inferred.
Two mechanics explain why the folk wisdom points the other way. Valvoline is majority company-operated, so the company section comes first, carries three fiscal years of quartile splits, and includes a full profit-and-loss down to contribution after royalty. It reads like the authoritative table because it is the more detailed one. Second, the company section prints both gross sales and net sales, and the gross figure runs roughly 15% higher. A summary that lifts company gross sales and compares it to franchisee net sales manufactures a gap that is not there.
The Valvoline Instant Oil Change system carried 1,071 franchised centers against 976 company-operated ones at the time of this filing, so neither network is a rounding error.
Section A earns its length. It is the only place Valvoline shows unit-level cost structure, and franchisees pay the same product and labor bills.
For fiscal 2025 the company network splits into quartiles by net sales: $2,290,679 median in the top quarter, $1,599,409 across the middle half, $1,084,301 in the bottom quarter. That spread, roughly 2.1x from bottom-quartile median to top-quartile median, is the honest picture of trade-area variance in quick lube.
The fiscal 2024 profit-and-loss goes further. On average net sales of $1,653,141, product ran $433,864 and labor $460,929, leaving gross profit of $758,348. After center expenses of $152,290 and advertising of $71,668, average contribution landed at $534,390 before royalty. Royalty at 4% of net sales took $66,126.
Note that 4%. Item 6 discloses a royalty of 2% of adjusted gross revenue in year one and 3% in year two, then 6% or a graduated 4% to 6% after that, and the Item 19 notes state that 95% of franchised centers paid 4% last year. Underwriting a flat 6% from day one overstates the royalty line materially.
Contribution is not profit. It sits above rent, debt service, insurance, and owner compensation, which is exactly why the purchased-site and leased-site distinction in Item 7 changes the deal so much.
The commonly quoted $192,375 to $3,483,550 span is not one range. Item 7 files two separate tables, and the quoted span takes the floor of one and the ceiling of the other.
Leased site: $192,375 to $639,550. You lease an existing building or pad and fit it out. This is the table most franchisees actually buy against.
Purchased site: $1,773,750 to $3,483,550. Land and improvements alone account for $1,550,000 to $2,750,000 of that. You are buying commercial real estate with a quick lube on it.
The gap between those tables is not a difference in the business. It is a decision about whether you are also a property owner. A leased center at $400,000 all-in against a $1,704,870 median produces a revenue-to-investment ratio above 4x. The same center on purchased land at $2.6M produces roughly 0.65x, while building an asset that keeps its value after the license term ends.
Multi-unit developers commonly mix the two, using leased sites to build cash flow and purchasing land selectively where the trade area justifies holding it.
| Brand | Item 19 sample | What the sample describes | Disclosed median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valvoline, franchisee side | 891 | Comparable franchisee-operated centers, net sales | $1,704,870 |
| Valvoline, company side | 785 | Comparable company-operated centers, net sales | $1,599,409 |
| Take 5 Oil Change | 298 | Affiliate-owned centers, gross sales | $1,327,808 |
| Jiffy Lube | 2,049 | Franchised stores open all 12 months | see FDD |
| Christian Brothers | 302 | Franchisee-owned stores open the full year | see FDD |
The column that matters is the third one. Take 5’s headline number describes affiliate-owned centers, so a buyer comparing Valvoline’s franchisee median to Take 5’s affiliate median is comparing two different populations. We work through that specific pairing in Take 5 vs Valvoline, and the broader category in best auto repair franchises.
Within quick lube, Valvoline discloses the deepest franchisee dataset in the category. That is worth something independent of the number itself, because a 891-center franchisee sample is hard to argue with in front of a lender.
The franchisee range is the part buyers skip. Fiscal 2025 franchisee-operated centers ran from $397,215 to $5,728,187 in net sales. A 14x spread inside one brand, one format, one fiscal year.
The company-operated quartiles give that spread some shape: bottom-quarter median $1,084,301, middle-half median $1,599,409, top-quarter median $2,290,679. If your site lands in the bottom quarter, you are running a business roughly half the size of the one in the top quarter, on a similar cost base.
Trade area, traffic count, and bay throughput drive that placement. Oil changes per day is the metric to interrogate: the company network averaged 51.1 per day system-wide in fiscal 2025, against 72.0 in the top quartile and 32.8 in the bottom. Ask any franchisee you call in validation what their daily car count is, and where it was in year one.
For broader category context, see our automotive franchise breakdown and Item 19 average vs. median. For brand-specific cost detail, the live Valvoline franchise page.
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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.
Median net sales of $1,704,870 across 891 comparable franchisee-operated centers in fiscal 2025, disclosed in Section B of Item 19. The average is $1,844,172 and the range runs from $397,215 to $5,728,187. This is the number a prospective franchisee should underwrite against, not the company-operated figure that circulates in third-party summaries.
Both. Section A of Item 19 covers company-operated centers with three fiscal years of quartile data and full profit-and-loss detail. Section B covers franchisee-operated centers. The company side gets quoted more often because it comes first and carries the deeper cost breakdown, but the franchisee section is the one that describes the business you would be buying.
No. On the same measure and the same fiscal year, franchisee-operated centers post a higher median: $1,704,870 across 891 units against $1,599,409 across 785 company-operated units, a 6.6% gap in the franchisees' favor. That runs against the usual pattern in mature service systems, where company units often lead. Compare net sales to net sales when you check this yourself, because the company section also prints gross sales, and mixing the two overstates the company side by roughly 15%.
It depends heavily on site type. A small conversion site (e.g., existing automotive bay buyout) can run $200K-$400K of investment against $1M-$1.4M of revenue — a 3-5× ratio. A new full-build greenfield site can run $2.5M-$3.5M of investment against $1.5M-$2M of revenue — a 0.5-0.8× ratio. Most franchisee deals sit in the middle range with ratios of 1.5-2.5× at maturity. Site type is the single biggest economic variable.
Item 7 files two tables rather than one range. A leased site runs $192,375 to $639,550. A purchased site runs $1,773,750 to $3,483,550, with land and improvements alone accounting for $1,550,000 to $2,750,000 of that. Directories that quote a single $192,375 to $3,483,550 span are splicing the low end of one table onto the high end of the other, which describes no actual buyer.
$30,000 for your first center, whether you build ground-up or convert an existing quick lube. A second center costs $20,000 if ground-up or $5,000 if it is a qualifying conversion, and any third center is $5,000. Under a development agreement the per-center fee runs $2,500 to $5,000, and buying a center from an existing franchisee costs $5,000 for the first and $2,500 for each additional one. The $5,000 figure that circulates online is the multi-unit and conversion rate, not the entry price.
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