How Much Supercuts Franchise Owners Really Make In A Year

Before 2025 was over, Gary Robins told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's online magazine he expected to make $20 million in revenue that year. He isn't a rock star or the creator of the most profitable "Shark Tank" product ever — he's a Supercuts franchiser. And not just any franchiser — he owns 63 Supercuts across Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Those 63 locations are only a small portion of the more than 2,600 Supercuts locations operating in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Founded in 1976, the company is now owned by Regis Corp., a Minnesota-based corporation that also owns several other salon brands, including Cost Cutters, Roosters, and First Choice Haircutters. As of 2024, about 93% of Regis' operations are run as franchises.

So how much can a franchise owner actually earn with a single Supercuts location? According to a 2024 franchise agreement, the average gross sales of a Supercuts location were $290,728 in the fiscal year 2022 to 2023. However, that sum does not take into account a slew of investment expenses, franchise fees, and other ongoing costs. According to franchise data platform Vetted Biz, the final figure, after expenses, can span from $39,723 to $51,084. To make a comparison across industries, that's far below the $200,000 to $260,000 a Wendy's franchise owner typically makes each year.  It can also take six to eight years for typical Supercuts franchise owners to recoup their investments.

According to the Supercuts franchise agreement of 2024, the total investment needed to start a Supercuts salon was between $185,406 and $317,878; this includes $54,816 to $57,838 that must be paid to Supercuts or an affiliate. In addition, a franchiser will also have to pay fees for advertising (5% of net services revenue monthly, excluding hair products) and royalties (4% of net revenue per month during the first year and 6% monthly thereafter), which are taken even if the Supercuts location is losing money. The 2024 agreement adds that if Supercuts changes its business model, there may be other expenses incurred by the franchisee.

Those figures don't include salaries for employees who, like the franchiser, must be trained by Supercuts' corporate staff using online courses. Per Indeed.com, average salaries at Supercuts can range from $18.80 per hour for a cosmetologist to $24.10 an hour for a stylist. A sales assistant at Supercuts makes an average of $36,250 a year.

Unlike some franchise systems, Supercuts doesn't require owners to be full-time, on-site operators. Instead, they can be semi-absentee, as Supercuts allows them to run their operation passively while they work another job. If an owner accumulates enough Supercuts locations, there's always the possibility that they could make millions of dollars by selling them back to the corporate office.

That's what happened in December 2024, when Regis paid $22 million to buy back 314 Supercuts, Cost Cutters, and Holiday Brand salons from its largest franchisee, Alline Salon Group. In a September 2025 earnings call, Regis' interim CEO Jim Lain said that those locations are being used to create a new stylist pay model that will "improve productivity and reward performance," and that other programs are being developed to improve all of Regis' brands' operations.

In the meantime, Regis Corp isn't afraid to simply shut down a franchise location if it isn't meeting performance expectations. There were 448 net location closures in 2025, most of which were "underperforming stores," Regis CFO Kersten Zupfer said during her company's Q4 2025 earnings call. As with figuring out how much money popular restaurant franchise owners really make each year, the numbers behind Supercuts prove that the truth can be far less glamorous than the national name suggests.