Assisted Stretching Franchises: 2026 FDD Guide

Assisted stretching franchises at a glance: 2025 and 2026 FDD data

Sample sizes differ enormously and the revenue figures are not equally reliable as a result — StretchLab's rests on 448 studios, The Vital Stretch's on four. Stretch Zone's royalty carries a $900 monthly minimum; its figures cover franchise businesses open at least twelve months. StretchMed's disclosure reports its 2024 fiscal year; the other three report 2025. All four brands charge a 2% national marketing fund on top of royalty, and each carries a separate local advertising requirement.

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What assisted stretching is as a business

An assisted stretching studio sells one-on-one sessions in which a trained practitioner moves a client through a guided stretching routine, usually on a specialized table, in twenty-five or fifty-minute blocks. Almost all of the revenue comes from recurring memberships rather than drop-ins, which makes the economics look far more like a boutique fitness studio than a clinic: modest square footage, no medical licensure or insurance billing, a small hourly staff, and a business that lives or dies on member acquisition and retention.

The category grew out of the boutique-fitness boom and the broader recovery trend — the same demand curve that has expanded cryotherapy, compression, and infrared studios — with an older-adult mobility angle layered on top. It is genuinely new as a franchise category: the oldest of these systems has been franchising for around a decade, and two of the four brands here had fewer than twenty units at their last filing.

What makes it worth a careful look is transparency. Every one of the four franchised stretching brands in our library publishes an Item 19, which is rare. In most categories the majority of franchisors decline to state what their franchisees earn, and we exclude them on that basis. Here you can compare four disclosures directly — which also means you can see, plainly, how differently these four businesses are performing. We reviewed every page of each brand's most recent FDD, checking each fee, investment, and revenue figure in this guide against the source document; where a franchisor's Item 19 runs to tables more detailed than a guide like this can usefully reproduce — month-by-month ramp-up schedules in particular — we summarize the cuts that matter to a buyer and recommend reviewing the full Item 19 in the original document. If you are weighing this against the clinical side of the recovery market, our physical therapy franchise guide and chiropractic franchise guide cover the licensed-practitioner models on the same basis.

What the Item 19 disclosures show: the scaled brands

StretchLab and Stretch Zone are the only two systems here with enough locations for their numbers to describe a range rather than a handful of outcomes. Both publish quartile tables, which is the most useful format a franchisor can give you.

StretchLab's 2026 FDD covers the 448 studios that were franchisee-owned and operating for all of 2025, out of 486 total. Non-traditional sites — studios inside gyms, malls, or similar host venues — are excluded.

StretchLab also publishes the operating metric that drives all of it: monthly active members averaged 159 across the 448 studios, ranging from 35 in the weakest studio to 548 in the strongest, with new memberships averaging fifteen a month. Membership count is effectively the whole business here — at roughly $511,300 of revenue on 159 average members, each member is worth on the order of $3,200 a year, and the difference between the top and bottom quartile is largely the difference between a studio that fills its tables and one that does not.

Stretch Zone's 2026 FDD covers the 237 franchise businesses that had been operating twelve months or more, out of 413 franchised units.

Put the two side by side and the gap is consistent all the way down: StretchLab's bottom quartile averages $288,500, which is close to Stretch Zone's second quartile at $335,937. That is a meaningful difference in revenue per studio — but StretchLab also costs substantially more to open, so the comparison that matters is return on invested capital, not revenue alone.

One disclosure detail in Stretch Zone's filing deserves attention. The franchisor states that it excluded 140 franchise businesses from the table "for a variety of reasons, including operational failures and not following system standards." That is a large exclusion relative to the 237 included, and the excluded group is unlikely to be a random sample — it plausibly skews weaker. Ask the franchisor directly how those 140 businesses performed. Stretch Zone also publishes a second table covering the subset of businesses that performed more than one service on at least 95% of days, which averaged $385,290; that is a self-selected high-utilization group, not a typical studio, and should not be read as a system figure.

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The emerging brands: read these numbers carefully

StretchMed and The Vital Stretch both disclose, which we credit — but their sample sizes are small enough that the figures describe a few specific businesses rather than a system, and they should be treated that way.

StretchMed's 2025 FDD reports two very different pictures. Its broadest table covers the seventeen studios open for all of 2024: average gross revenue of $310,242, median $263,392, ranging from $94,315 to $651,480. A separate table covers only the three studios open more than three years, which averaged $518,977 in revenue. That higher figure is the one most likely to be quoted at you, and three studios is not a basis for a projection — but the direction is informative, since it suggests these studios keep building revenue well past year three.

The Vital Stretch is the newest system here, with its first franchised outlets opening in 2024. Its 2026 FDD reports on the four outlets that operated for all of 2025: average annual gross revenue of $190,291, with the strongest at $236,048 and the weakest at $162,314 — a notably tight band, though four data points cannot tell you much about spread. The franchisor also publishes month-by-month revenue for ten outlets that opened during 2025, which is genuinely useful for modelling a ramp: those studios generally moved from a few thousand dollars in their first month to the $10,000 to $16,000 range by months six through nine.

Profit: what these disclosures do and do not tell you

Every figure above is gross revenue. Three of the four brands disclose no profit information at all, which is normal — most franchisors stop at revenue.

StretchMed is the exception, and its numbers are worth reading precisely because they are the only cost structure on offer. Across the three studios open more than three years, average gross revenue was $518,977 against average expenses of $408,956, leaving average gross profit of $110,021 — a margin of roughly 21%. Within that group profit ranged from $88,669 to $151,723. Three studios is far too small a base to generalize from, and the disclosure does not state whether owner compensation is deducted, so treat the 21% as a single data point rather than a category benchmark.

What you can do is build the cost side yourself, because the fee structure is fully disclosed. On a studio doing $300,000 in revenue, the brand-mandated load runs roughly 8% to 10% of revenue in royalty and national marketing before you add the local advertising minimums, which at several of these brands are fixed dollar amounts rather than percentages — and a fixed minimum is heaviest exactly when revenue is lowest. Rent for 1,000 to 1,500 square feet, hourly practitioner wages, and a studio manager account for most of the rest. Ask franchisees at your target revenue level what their payroll runs as a percentage of revenue; in a service business sold in fifty-minute blocks, staff utilization is the margin.

What it costs to open: fees, royalty, and total investment

The initial fees are clustered within about $10,000 of each other, so the real difference is the build-out. StretchLab's range tops out above $800,000 — a reflection of larger studios in higher-rent retail — while StretchMed's caps at $167,363. Against StretchMed's seventeen-studio average of $310,242 in revenue, that is a materially different capital story than StretchLab's $511,300 average on up to five times the investment.

Two fee details are easy to miss. Stretch Zone's royalty carries a $900 monthly floor, which binds on any studio below roughly $154,000 in annual revenue — and its own bottom quartile averages $154,868, so a meaningful slice of that system is at or near the minimum. StretchMed layers several fixed monthly charges on top of the percentage fees, including a currently-$2,500 local advertising requirement, a sales development representative fee currently at $1,200 a month, and optional content and social media services at up to $500 each. On a studio doing $260,000 a year, those fixed items alone can exceed the royalty.

Is the category growing? What Item 20 shows

StretchLab's curve is the one to interrogate. The system added 145 net franchised studios in 2023, 57 in 2024, and one in 2025. A flat year in a 486-studio system can mean the brand has filled its best territories, that openings and closures are now offsetting each other, or that new-unit demand has cooled. The FDD's own footnote is telling: the parent company treats a studio as no longer operating once it has reason to believe the studio is permanently closed. Ask specifically how many StretchLab studios opened and how many closed in 2025, rather than accepting the net figure.

Stretch Zone's growth has moderated but continued, adding 36 net franchised units in 2025 against 47 the prior year. It also eliminated its company-owned units, which is neutral on its own but worth a question. The two small systems are growing quickly in percentage terms, which is what early-stage franchises do; the relevant question there is not growth rate but whether the support infrastructure scales with it.

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Which type of assisted stretching franchise is right for you?

The four brands split cleanly into two decisions.

If you want the established route, it is StretchLab or Stretch Zone. StretchLab has the highest disclosed revenue per studio and the strongest brand recognition, backed by a large franchising parent — and the highest capital requirement, an 8% royalty that is the steepest here, and a system that added almost no net units last year. Stretch Zone offers roughly 40% lower average revenue at roughly half the capital at the midpoint, is still expanding, and has a distinctive method that differentiates it in a market where the service can otherwise look interchangeable; its counterweight is the large group of businesses excluded from its Item 19.

If you are drawn to an emerging system, StretchMed is the cheapest entry in the category by a wide margin and the only brand disclosing any cost structure, but its fixed monthly fees are heavy for a small studio and its results rest on seventeen locations. The Vital Stretch is earlier still, with fourteen franchised outlets and four full-year results; early franchisees in a system that scales can do very well, but you are underwriting the franchisor's execution as much as your own.

Across all four, the operator profile is the same: this is a retail membership business, not a clinical one. No license is required to own it, staff are hourly practitioners you will need to recruit and retain in a competitive wellness labor market, and success comes down to local marketing, membership conversion, and keeping tables utilized. If you want a business where clinical credentials create the moat, the chiropractic and physical therapy categories are a better fit than this one.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an assisted stretching franchise cost?

Total estimated investment ranges from $118,160 to $167,363 for a StretchMed studio, $142,590 to $305,489 for Stretch Zone, $157,400 to $258,100 for The Vital Stretch, and $271,037 to $814,192 for StretchLab. Initial franchise fees are clustered between $49,500 and $60,000, so most of the difference is build-out and equipment.

How much do assisted stretching franchisees make?

For 2025, StretchLab reports average gross revenue of $511,300 and a median of $487,000 across 448 qualified studios, and Stretch Zone reports an average of $310,219 and a median of $290,707 across 237 franchise businesses. StretchMed reports an average of $310,242 across seventeen studios for 2024, and The Vital Stretch an average of $190,291 across four outlets for 2025. These are revenue figures, not profit.

Is an assisted stretching franchise profitable?

Only StretchMed discloses profit, and only for the three studios open more than three years: average revenue of $518,977 against average expenses of $408,956, leaving average gross profit of $110,021. That is a single small data point, not a category benchmark. The other three brands disclose revenue only, so you will need to build the cost side yourself from the fee schedules and local rent and wage rates.

Do I need a licence or certification to own a stretching studio?

Ownership generally does not require a clinical licence, which is a key difference from chiropractic or physical therapy franchises. The practitioners delivering sessions complete brand-specific training programs, and state rules on massage and bodywork can apply depending on how the service is described and delivered. Confirm the requirements for your state before signing.

Which assisted stretching franchise is the biggest?

StretchLab, with 486 franchised studios at the end of 2025, narrowly ahead of Stretch Zone at 413. StretchMed had 31 franchised studios at the end of 2024 and The Vital Stretch had fourteen at the end of 2025.

Why are all four brands featured here, when other guides show fewer?

Because we cover only brands that publish an Item 19 Financial Performance Representation, and assisted stretching is one of the few categories where every franchised brand in our library does. That is unusual and worth knowing: in most categories the majority of franchisors decline to state what their franchisees earn.

Key questions to ask before signing

• How many studios opened and how many closed in the most recent year, as opposed to the net change reported in Item 20?
• For Stretch Zone: how did the 140 franchise businesses excluded from the Item 19 table perform, and why were they excluded?
• For StretchLab: what drove a net change of one franchised studio in 2025 after 145 in 2023?
• How many active members does a studio need to break even in my market, and how many months does that typically take?
• What does payroll run as a percentage of revenue at a studio doing the median revenue for this brand?
• What is the total fixed monthly cost of brand-mandated fees, including local advertising minimums, at my projected revenue?
• What are practitioner turnover rates, and how long does it take to hire and train a replacement?
• Can the franchisor connect me with franchisees at a similar tenure and market size, including any who have exited the system?

The bottom line on assisted stretching franchises

Assisted stretching is the rare category where every franchised brand shows its numbers, and the numbers say the category is real but uneven. StretchLab has the strongest revenue per studio and the most locations, and its expansion has stalled. Stretch Zone earns less per studio at a lower cost of entry and is still growing, with a sizeable group of businesses left out of its disclosure. StretchMed and The Vital Stretch are cheap and early, with results drawn from too few locations to project from.

None of the four tells you what you would earn, and only one says anything at all about profit. What the disclosures do give you is an unusually clear view of the spread within each system — and in a membership business, that spread is mostly a story about member count and table utilization, which are things a good operator can influence. Pull the current FDD for the brands you are considering, read Item 19 and Item 20 in full, and talk with current and former franchisees before you commit. For the licensed-clinician side of the recovery market, see our chiropractic franchise guide and physical therapy franchise guide.

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