TL;DR
Sola Salons, a salon-suite brand with over 740 locations, offers a real estate-driven model with lean staffing for franchisees. The company's 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document provides historical financial data to help prospective owners assess potential returns on investment.
Sola Salons, a leading salon-suite brand with more than 740 locations, gives entrepreneurs a way to grow in beauty and wellness without running a traditional salon. Franchisees operate a real estate–driven model with lean staffing, making it easier to scale. Weighing the factors that contribute to earnings and understanding the Franchise Disclosure Document is key.
Unlike traditional salons operating on an employee-based model that requires owners to hire, train and manage stylists and other unit-level team members, Sola Salons requires minimal labor. Franchisees function as property managers, leasing turnkey salon studios to independent beauty professionals. These professionals are tenants who sign a lease, not employees who must be managed.
At most, some Sola owners will hire a small property management and maintenance team should they not desire to be in the units themselves on a regular basis. This model virtually eliminates the complexities that come with labor management, making it easier for franchisees to oversee multiple locations with minimal staff.
Financial performance data
This lean structure also contributes to what the leadership team calls a “high flow-through model,” where once fixed costs are covered and the break-even point is reached, incremental revenue from leasing additional studios significantly contributes to the bottom line.
Sola Salons’ 2025 FDD provides historical financial data from existing franchised locations to help prospective owners assess the potential opportunity. While this data does not guarantee any one franchisee’s financial performance, it does serve as an important benchmark to begin understanding the potential return on investment.
Based on reporting from 631 franchised Sola locations in 2023 and 660 franchised locations in 2024, Sola Salons discloses the following revenue data:
Occupancy rates and trends
Sola Salons reports the following occupancy data for 399 salons that met the New Location Occupancy Reporting Criteria.
As a model reliant on leasing studio space, occupancy is a critical performance indicator. Similar to the revenue representations made in the FDD, these occupancy rates are not guaranteed. Rather, they should be used as helpful context to estimate potential occupancy rates in your own salons.
While the “How much can I make?” question does not have one single, guaranteed answer, the Sola Salons 2025 FDD provides valuable data to help potential franchisees make an informed projection. And the leadership team has worked to create a clear FDD written in plain English rather than legal jargon.
Throughout the due diligence process, candidates have an opportunity to speak with existing franchisees. These conversations are another prime opportunity to gather more data and get a better understanding of what you may expect in more specific scenarios. When working to determine how much you’ll be able to make as a Sola Salons franchisee, be sure to leverage these validation conversations to get an idea of local market conditions, gross revenue figures, ongoing overhead costs and other factors that impact an owner’s final profitability.
By thoroughly reviewing the FDD, speaking with existing franchisees and considering the differentiating traits of the Sola business model, entrepreneurs can gain a clearer picture of the financial potential and decide if the Sola opportunity aligns with their goals.
In this story
This story was originally published in 1851 Franchise on October 27, 2025. Burnaze summarizes and links to the original reporting.
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