FRANCHISE·WATCH·DESK

From the filed FDD — automated extraction, check the source

2024 FDD · 1+ year old

SBA-eligible · directory code S5945 since 2020

BASECAMP

HIIT & group training studios · parent company: not identified

Basecamp Fitness is a boutique gym offering high-intensity interval training (HIIT) classes that mix bike sprints and strength circuits in a fast, music-driven group format. Classes are short and intense. A franchisee operates a studio, hiring instructors and running scheduled group classes.

BASECAMP went from 12 → 23 units over 2021–2024 — too small a starting base for a meaningful percentage per its FDD Item 20.

New to franchising? Start here

A franchise is a business where you (the franchisee) pay a company (the franchisor) for the right to open and run a location using their brand and system — think a local Anytime Fitness or Taco John's owned by a small-business owner, not the corporation.

Before you can buy in, U.S. law requires the franchisor to give you a Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) — a long legal filing covering its fees, finances, and history. Most numbers on this page come from that document; others come from federal SBA loan records and labor and census data, each labelled with its source:

  • Franchise fee — the one-time cost to buy in.
  • Royalty — the ongoing cut of your sales you pay the franchisor.
  • Item 20 — how many locations opened, transferred and left the system, the main basis for our verdict, which rates how strong the disclosed record is, or says when the system is too new, the filing too old, or the disclosure too thin to judge.

Our rating · opinion

Too new to judge

19 franchised units over 4 disclosed years of Item 20 is too little history for a rating — a young system's record hasn't had time to show how units perform over a full loan term. Judge the disclosures, not a rating.

Exit rate · fiscal 2024

6.3%

vs 1.8% median across 5 comparable systems (hiit & group training studios)

Cost to open

$536K–$853K

Item 7 total investment range

SBA loan losses

Too few to rate

0 seasoned resolved loans; 30 needed

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Data as of 2026-10-29. Figures come from BASECAMP's public FDD filings (latest: MN 2024, extracted 2026-06-18) and SBA FOIA loan records (through FY2026), extracted by us and possibly containing errors. The rating is our opinion, not investment, legal, or tax advice. Franchisor or owner and see something wrong? Report a correction — we review every request.

What each source says

FDD record · SBA loans · model · auditor

Our answer: Too new to judge

The Item 20 record is too short or too small to rate; the loan record and model are context, not a verdict.

FDD record · Item 20

Too little history

Units went from 12 to 23 (2021–2024); exit rate 6.3% (fiscal 2024) vs 1.8% median.

SBA loans · vs same-year loans

Too few seasoned loans

0 resolved loans approved by FY2020; 30 needed.

Modeled risk

Not scored

Too little evidence for the model.

Auditor opinion · Item 21

Not extracted

We did not extract the audit opinion.

Behind the verdict

the record, factor by factor · Item 20

hi-1.0.0
Net unit growth41%

latest consecutive years · Item 20 Table 1

Strong
Exit quality29%

terminations + ceased-ops vs. all exits · Table 3

Fair
Transfer / churn18%

transfers vs. base · Table 3

Fair
Promise-keeping12%

actual vs. projected openings · Table 5

Not Disc.
Transparencynot in verdict

Item 19 disclosure + completeness · shown, not counted in the verdict

Weak

Systemwide units

2021–2024

12 → 23 units
122021142022212023232024

Survival record

FDD Item 20 · outlet status by year

In fiscal 2024, 1 of 16 franchised outlets left the system — an exit rate of 6.3% (fiscal 2024), vs a 1.8% median across 5 comparable systems (hiit & group training studios). An exit is not a failure: this counts terminations, non-renewals and "ceased — other reasons" as reported, and excludes transfers to new owners.

Show the outlet tables ↓
Status (FTC)2021202220232024
Outlets at start8121421
Opened4474
Transfers0012
Terminations0101
Non-renewals0000
Reacquired by franchisor0000
Ceased — other reasons0000
Outlets at end12142123
Net change+4+2+7+2

The lender's view

SBA 7(a)/504 loan outcomes · compared with franchise loans of the same years

Banks have made 15 SBA-backed loans to BASECAMP franchisees since 2021. Only 0 of its loans approved by FY2020 have resolved — fewer than the 30 we need to compare it fairly with other franchise loans, so we don't rate it.

All-time, 1 of 3 resolved loans charged off (33.3%). That raw figure mixes every approval year since 2021 — loans made in 2006–08 failed at several times the rate of loans made in 2010–13 across all franchises — so it is shown as evidence, not as the score. 80% of the brand's loans have not resolved yet.

Loss vs same-year loans

—

0 seasoned resolved · 30 needed

All-time charge-off · raw

33.3%

1 of 3 resolved, every approval year

Loss given default

—

charged-off $ ÷ approved $, defaulted loans

Avg. loan · FY2020+

$378,073

what recent franchisees borrowed

Median time to default

—

shown with 10+ defaults

Lenders · FY21+ vs FY16–20

—

distinct banks lending

Charge-off rate by loan approval year (%) · dashed line = all franchise loans that year

SOURCE: SBA 7(a)/504 FOIA LOAN DATA (DATA.SBA.GOV), FY1991–PRESENT · MATCHED TO BASECAMP BY SBA FRANCHISE NAME/CODE · RESOLVED = CHARGED-OFF + PAID-IN-FULL · EXPECTED = SAME-YEAR RATE ACROSS ALL SBA FRANCHISE LOANS, LOANS ≥ ~6 YEARS OLD

What it costs — and what it drags

FDD Items 5–7 · fees, investment, royalty

Buying in means a $42,500 franchise fee (Item 5) and a total investment of $536K–$853K (Item 7). The franchisor publishes no earnings claim (Item 19) — ask current and former franchisees for real numbers.

To open (Item 7)

$536K–$853K

all-in investment range

Franchise fee (Item 5)

$42,500

upfront, one-time

Royalty (Item 6)

8%

of sales, ongoing

If a unit does this in annual sales…$500K/yr

Starts at a placeholder of $500K — a round figure for the sector, not from BASECAMP’s filings. This brand's FDD makes no Item 19 earnings claim; set your own figure and check it with current and former owners.

Royalty you'd pay / yr

$40K

8% of sales, before profit

Over a 10-yr term

$400K

royalties alone, excl. ad fund

This estimate is computed by software from the brand's public filings and any inputs you enter. No CPA prepared it for you and no assurance is provided on it. Actual results will differ, and the differences may be material.

This is not profit. It covers what the FDD fixes: what you put in, and the royalty you owe on sales. Your take-home depends on rent, staff pay, equipment payments, and the months to breakeven, none of which the FDD fixes for your unit (some Item 19s include cost data — read it).

Build a real pro-forma for BASECAMP with a buyer-paid CPA

Public records

Bankruptcy, closure & federal court records · coverage is selective · dockets are not scored

We have no verified public-record signals published for BASECAMP. This is not evidence that no events exist. Check PACER, the FDD's Item 3 (litigation) and Item 4 (bankruptcy), and recent news yourself.

8 questions to ask a BASECAMP franchisee

Built from this brand's own disclosures · take it to your validation calls

The franchisor will give you a list of owners to call. Most buyers ask whether they like it. These questions come from what BASECAMP has disclosed. Each one carries the number it came from, so you can check the answer against the record.

  1. 01

    BASECAMP’s own Item 20 shows 1 of 16 franchised outlets left the system in fiscal 2024 — about 6.3%. Do you know any of those owners, and do you know why they left?

    A franchisor will call these “transitions.” An owner three doors down usually knows whether they sold at a profit or handed the keys back.

    FDD Item 20 · FY2024

  2. 02

    2 units transferred to new owners in fiscal 2024. When you look at those, were they people cashing out a good business — or getting out of a bad one?

    Item 20 counts transfers as neutral, but a transfer can be a good sale or a reluctant exit — the filing does not say which.

    FDD Item 20 · FY2024

  3. 03

    You pay 8.0% royalty on gross sales, plus the ad fund, before any of your own costs. On your actual revenue last year, what did you take home as the owner — not revenue, take-home?

    Royalty is charged on sales, not profit. This is the number the brochure never shows and the one your life actually runs on.

    FDD Item 6

  4. 04

    BASECAMP’s FDD makes no financial performance representation at all — legally, they've told buyers nothing about earnings. What did your first 24 months actually look like, month by month?

    When a franchisor won't publish numbers, existing owners are the only source. Silence in Item 19 is a choice, not a requirement.

    FDD Item 19 · 2024

  5. 05

    How many months did it take to cover your own costs, and how much cash did you burn getting there?

    Ramp-to-breakeven working capital is the most underestimated line in any franchise purchase, and the most common reason otherwise-good units fail.

    Not disclosed in any FDD — ask an owner

  6. 06

    What does the franchisor charge for that you didn't expect — required tech fees, mandatory remodels, approved-supplier pricing?

    Required spending appears across Items 6, 8 and 11 rather than in one place, so buyers routinely miss the total.

    FDD Items 6, 8, 11

  7. 07

    If your agreement came up for renewal tomorrow at current terms, would you sign again?

    The single most predictive question you can ask. A hesitation is the answer.

    Ask every owner you speak to

  8. 08

    Who else should I call — including someone who left?

    The franchisor's list is curated by definition. Former franchisees are where the unflattering truth lives, and current owners usually know how to reach them.

    Ask every owner you speak to

Want this as a checklist you can take to the calls?

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This page is what buyers see before they call you for validation. If the record above is wrong — or right in a way the numbers can't show — say so. Franchisors: send corrections with the page reference and we will review them against the filing and update or annotate the page. Corrections are checked against the filings; nothing you write is published with your name unless you agree to it.

BASECAMP franchise questions, answered from the filings

How many BASECAMP franchised outlets left the system last year?

In BASECAMP's latest FDD Item 20 (fiscal 2024), 1 of 16 franchised outlets left the system — an exit rate of 6.3% — compared with a 1.8% median across 5 comparable systems (hiit & group training studios) tracked here. That counts terminations, non-renewals, and "ceased operations — other reasons" as the franchisor reported them; it excludes transfers to new owners. The FDD does not say why each outlet left, and an exit is not the same as a failure.

How much does a BASECAMP franchise cost?

Per BASECAMP's 2024 FDD, buying in requires an initial franchise fee of $42,500 (Item 5) and a total initial investment of $536K–$853K (Item 7).

What royalty does BASECAMP charge?

BASECAMP charges an ongoing royalty of 8.0% of gross sales, per Item 6 of its 2024 FDD.

Does BASECAMP disclose earnings (Item 19)?

No — BASECAMP's 2024 FDD makes no financial performance representation in Item 19. That is legal and common, but it means the franchisor publishes no earnings claim; ask current franchisees for real numbers.