Auto repair franchises: costs, royalties and how they compare

An auto repair franchise is a license to run a shop under someone else’s brand, systems and supplier program.

You pay an initial franchise fee to buy in, fund the whole build-out yourself — construction, equipment, signage, initial inventory — and then keep paying an ongoing royalty for the life of the agreement.

Ten of the eleven brands with published royalty and fee terms on this page also charge a separate marketing or advertising contribution on top of the royalty.

Midas is the exception — it charges no separate ad fund and commits at least half the royalties it receives to marketing.

The fee and royalty figures here come from each franchisor’s own franchise disclosure document (FDD) as filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce — not from franchise directories.

The exceptions are named where they occur: the Maaco figures come from Maaco’s own franchise site, and the collision-network counts come from Driven Brands’ fiscal 2025 annual report.

Every published figure carries its date, because FDDs are reissued every year.

Item 5 of each FDD states the initial franchise fee, Item 6 the royalty and advertising terms, Item 7 the total initial investment estimate, and Item 20 the outlet counts used here.

Royalty design varies more than the buy-in does.

Jiffy Lube charges 4 percent of gross sales and drops it to 3 percent if you pay on time.

Valvoline ramps from 2 percent in year one to 3 percent in year two and 6 percent from year three.

Meineke takes category rates between 3 and 7 percent on top of an 8 percent advertising fund (1.5 percent on tires, towing and government inspections).

Christian Brothers Automotive takes no percentage of sales at all — it takes half of each month’s “Split Profits,” revenue minus approved shared expenses.

Conversion is the discount door for owners who already run a shop.

Midas charges a converting independent $17,500 against its $35,000 standard fee, Meineke charges $20,000 against $45,000, and Jiffy Lube $17,500 against $35,000; Tint World charges $24,950 against $49,950 to convert an existing independent styling center.

Take 5’s conversion investment range starts at $287,145 — against $912,248 for a ground-up build.

Read the current filing.

Every figure on this page is dated to one filing — an FDD where this research read one, the brand’s own franchise site or its franchisor’s annual report otherwise — and FDDs are reissued every year.

Pull the brand’s current FDD and read Items 5, 6 and 7 yourself before you rely on any number here, and have a franchise attorney and a CPA review the terms before you sign.

This page is business information, not legal, tax or financial advice.

The table compares the published terms brand by brand.

Investment figures are each FDD’s Item 7 estimate for one unit, and conversion ranges sit alongside new-unit ranges where a brand publishes both.

A brand whose costs were not found in the sources read is shown as such rather than estimated, and each brand’s royalty and marketing terms share one cell so you read them together.

Three cautions when you read it.

First, the brands compute investment differently: Midas’s totals assume the real estate and building are leased, and Jiffy Lube’s freestanding-center range excludes real estate entirely, so those cells do not measure identical scopes.

Second, the franchisor’s share of the investment varies for reasons that have nothing to do with the fee.

Big O Tires’ range includes $417,000 to $2,451,500 paid to the franchisor or its affiliates, reflecting inventory, equipment and real estate purchased through Big O companies.

Third, a cell that says a figure was not found or not retrieved describes what this research found on the franchisor’s own pages — it does not mean no fee exists.

Request the brand’s current FDD for the Item 5, 6 and 7 numbers before you plan around it.

Midas is the conversion-friendly incumbent.

Its 2026 FDD, issued April 16, 2026, prices a new 8-bay shop at $385,450 to $940,050 and a conversion of an existing repair facility at $143,400 to $941,050.

The standard initial franchise fee is $35,000, reduced to $17,500 for an independent owner who converts, and a $10,000 application deposit credits toward the fee.

The royalty runs 2 to 10 percent of net revenue — 10 percent standard, 6 percent on tires, 2 percent on batteries and zero on pass-through towing, rental and inspection stickers, up to 11 percent for a co-branding shop.

Rather than charging a separate ad fund, Midas commits to spending at least half the royalties it receives on marketing.

The system ended 2025 with 1,000 U.S. outlets — 889 franchised and 111 company-owned.

Meineke’s FDD, issued June 20, 2025 and amended December 29, 2025, prices a center at $224,898 to $1,200,818, including $45,195 to $71,195 paid to the franchisor or affiliates.

The initial fee is $45,000 for a new center and $20,000 under the conversion program.

Its royalty is the greater of a $20,800 annual minimum or category rates.

The categories run 7 percent on exhaust, 5.5 percent on engine and transmission replacement, diagnostics and scheduled maintenance, 4 percent on batteries, 3 percent on tires, inspections and towing, and 5 percent on all other work.

A separate advertising fund takes 8 percent of gross revenue, reduced to 1.5 percent on tires, towing and government inspections.

On the 5 percent catch-all category, royalty plus fund comes to 13 percent of revenue — arithmetic from the two FDD lines, not an FDD statement.

Meineke ended 2024 with 716 franchised outlets and no company-owned locations.

Christian Brothers Automotive prices highest at the front door: its 2026 FDD, issued April 17, 2026, lists an initial investment of $515,250 to $650,400 — $392,500 to $419,000 of it to the franchisor or affiliates — and an $85,000 initial franchise fee.

The royalty is the outlier: 50 percent of each month’s “Split Profits,” defined as revenue minus approved shared expenses, rather than a percentage of sales.

The agreement allows up to $60,000 in combined salary or wage to the owner, a spouse and household dependents as a shared expense, so the brand’s income tracks the shop’s profit rather than its gross.

The 2026 FDD reports $12,500 in total annual marketing payments to its national and regional funds, and the system ended 2025 with 326 franchised outlets and none company-owned.

AAMCO’s terms are the oldest on this page: the newest filing the research located is its 2024 FDD, issued April 30, 2024.

It lists a $39,500 initial license fee for a new franchisee opening a new AAMCO center, a 7.5 percent royalty on gross receipts for new centers, and a $150-per-month National Creative Advertising Fund contribution.

A newer FDD may exist, and the investment range in the copy of the 2024 filing our research could read was unusable, so no range appears here — get AAMCO’s current FDD before relying on any of its figures.

The collision brands compared on this page are Driven Brands’ names — CARSTAR, ABRA and Fix Auto — plus its paint brand Maaco.

Driven Brands’ fiscal 2025 10-K, covering the year ended December 27, 2025, counts 1,077 collision locations across CARSTAR, ABRA and Fix Auto — almost exclusively franchised — and calls the combination the largest franchised collision repair network in North America.

The filing counts the brands together and does not split them out.

One ownership nuance: the 10-K says Driven Brands licenses or sublicenses the Fix Auto trademark for use in the U.S., and Fix Auto’s own U.S. site describes a network of franchisee-owned and managed collision shops, part of the Fix Network family of brands.

CARSTAR’s own franchise pages did not yield a fee or investment figure in this research, so the table above shows the gap rather than a guess; request the current FDD for the Item 5, 6 and 7 numbers.

Maaco, Driven Brands’ paint and cosmetic-repair brand, had 370 franchised locations as of December 27, 2025, which the 10-K describes as offering paint, surface preparation, refinishing and cosmetic repairs at a lower average price point than most collision centers.

Maaco’s own franchise site lists financial qualifications of $1M+ net worth and $420K+ in liquid assets.

It also cites $1.43 million in average annual gross receipts — based on 2022 results of centers open two years or more, with Maaco’s own caveat that historic performance does not guarantee future results.

The site pages this research read listed no franchise fee, investment range or royalty; request the FDD.

The giants of collision sit outside this franchise table.

Caliber reports more than 1,800 centers across 44 states — a count that includes glass and other services alongside collision — with 31,000-plus teammates.

The Boyd Group, parent of Gerber Collision & Glass, reports 1,300-plus collision locations across 37 states and six provinces, combining U.S. and Canadian sites, and describes itself as one of the largest operators of non-franchised collision repair centers in North America.

Crash Champions reports more than 650 locations in 38 states and Washington, D.C. The company pages this research read describe no franchise offering for Caliber or Crash Champions, so a collision franchise buyer’s comparison set includes operators of this size.

See the auto body technician listings for the pool all of these shops hire from.

The four largest investment ceilings on this table all sit in the quick-lube and tire rows, and the spreads are wide.

Valvoline Instant Oil Change’s FDD, issued December 26, 2025, prices a center at $192,375 to $3,483,550 and carries a $30,000 license fee for the first center.

Jiffy Lube’s FDD, issued March 27, 2026 and amended July 1, 2026, prices a new freestanding center at $232,000 to $520,000 excluding real estate, with a $35,000 fee and $17,500 for a conversion.

Take 5 and Grease Monkey sit between them.

Take 5’s FDD, issued June 13, 2025 and amended December 29, 2025, prices a ground-up center at $912,248 to $2,053,642 and a conversion at $287,145 to $1,013,587.

The initial fee is $45,000.

Grease Monkey’s FDD, issued April 7, 2026, prices a center at $708,057 to $2,284,321 with a $39,900 fee.

Royalty plus marketing is where these formats differ most.

Take 5 charges 7 percent of gross sales plus a 5 percent marketing contribution.

Jiffy Lube charges 4 percent — 3 percent if paid on time — plus a 1.5 percent national advertising fund, a 2.5 percent local and cooperative advertising requirement and a 4 percent total minimum advertising requirement.

Grease Monkey charges 6 percent plus a 0.5 percent national materials fund it can raise to 1 percent and a 4 percent minimum local advertising spend.

Valvoline ramps its royalty from 2 percent to 3 percent to 6 percent over three years, requires at least 3 percent of adjusted gross revenue in local advertising and caps its General System Fund contribution at 2 percent.

Ownership mix is where this category splits.

Take 5 ended 2024 with 710 of its 1,142 outlets company-owned — the franchisor itself runs most of that system, so the franchises for sale are the minority.

Valvoline ended fiscal 2025 with 976 company-owned against 1,063 franchised, close to an even split.

Jiffy Lube had 318 company-owned of 2,083 outlets and Grease Monkey 175 of 408.

Big O Tires is the opposite: all 470 outlets at its fiscal year-end of March 31, 2026 were franchised.

Its FDD, issued June 29, 2026, prices a franchise at $543,500 to $2,738,000 — $417,000 to $2,451,500 of that flowing through the franchisor or affiliates.

The fee is $17,500 and the royalty is a matrix rate of 3.5 to 5 percent of adjusted gross sales, with local and national marketing lines on top.

Staffing these formats is the daily job.

Browse the lube technician listings and tire technician listings to see the candidates a quick-lube or tire location hires from.

Neither structure wins on its own; your market, your capital and your books decide it.

The royalty line is the standing cost of the brand, and it reads more honestly as an all-in load than as a bare rate.

Midas’s standard royalty is 10 percent of net revenue, and it charges no separate ad fund.

Meineke’s 5 percent catch-all royalty plus its 8 percent advertising fund comes to 13 percent on the catch-all category — arithmetic from the two FDD lines.

Jiffy Lube’s 4 percent royalty plus its combined 4 percent advertising requirement (1.5 percent national fund plus 2.5 percent local and cooperative) is 8 percent all in — again the sum of the FDD lines, not an FDD statement.

So read the royalty and the advertising lines together before you compare brands on percentages.

What the royalty buys is the brand’s side of the trade: the marketing, supplier programs, training and operating systems the franchise agreement spells out — read the sections describing them alongside Item 6.

What an independent keeps is the entire margin, control of the service mix and pricing, and no reporting obligations to a franchisor.

The FDD tells you the price of the brand; only your own numbers tell you the return.

For an owner with bays already built, the conversion column is worth reading first.

Midas lists conversion at $143,400 to $941,050 against $385,450 to $940,050 for a new 8-bay build.

Take 5 lists conversion at $287,145 to $1,013,587 against $912,248 to $2,053,642 ground-up.

Meineke and Jiffy Lube both price a conversion fee below the new-center fee.

The royalty and advertising terms, not the entry price, are the long-term commitment.

Whoever owns the brand, the location hires for itself — the franchisee posts the jobs, sets the pay plan and keeps the crew.

Plan hiring for your shop before the build-out rather than after, and browse the automotive technician listings to see what candidates see.

Before you sign: pull the current FDD for every brand on your short list, read Items 5, 6 and 7 in full, and check the outlet counts in Item 20.

Ask which financial performance representations the franchisor makes and what year and outlet group they cover, and date every figure you rely on.

Business and career information for shop owners and managers, not legal, tax, insurance or financial advice; franchise agreements are binding contracts, so have a franchise attorney and a CPA review any FDD before you commit.