FRANCHISE·WATCH·DESK

From the filed FDD — automated extraction, check the source

2025 FDD

SBA-eligible · directory code S3245 since 2018

Stretch Lab

Assisted stretching · parent company: not identified

StretchLab is a studio offering one-on-one assisted stretching, where trained 'flexologists' guide clients through stretching sessions to improve flexibility and mobility. It operates on a membership and appointment model rather than selling products. A franchisee runs a boutique studio, hiring stretch practitioners and selling recurring memberships.

Stretch Lab net unit count grew 70.8% over 2022–2024 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

Strong disclosed record

Enough units and history to judge, and the operating record is good. Units grew 71% (2022–2024: 284 → 485); the fiscal 2024 exit rate was 3.3%, below the 5.2% median across 35 comparable systems (fitness).

Exit rate · fiscal 2024

3.3%

vs 5.2% median across 35 comparable systems (fitness)

Cost to open

$269K–$610K

Item 7 total investment range

SBA loan losses

Too few to rate

18 seasoned resolved loans; 30 needed

Market density · California

Typical density

14% denser than the national average

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Data as of 2026-10-29. Figures come from Stretch Lab's public FDD filings (latest: MN 2025, extracted 2026-06-19) 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.

Buying an existing Stretch Lab? Transfer fee $10,000, resale record and asking-price check →

What each source says

FDD record · SBA loans · model · auditor

Our answer: Strong disclosed record

The sources broadly agree, and the verdict follows the FDD's operating record.

FDD record · Item 20

Strong operating record

Units grew 71% (2022–2024: 284 → 485); exit rate 3.3% (fiscal 2024) vs 5.2% median.

SBA loans · vs same-year loans

Too few seasoned loans

18 resolved loans approved by FY2020; 30 needed.

Modeled risk

Lower risk

Directional only — too few seasoned loans to check it.

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

Strong
Transfer / churn18%

transfers vs. base · Table 3

Weak
Promise-keeping12%

actual vs. projected openings · Table 5

Strong
Transparencynot in verdict

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

Strong

Systemwide units

2022–2024

+70.8%
284202243020234852024

Survival record

FDD Item 20 · outlet status by year

In fiscal 2024, 14 of 428 franchised outlets left the system — an exit rate of 3.3% (fiscal 2024), vs a 5.2% median across 35 comparable systems (fitness). 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)202220232024
Outlets at start148284430
Opened13514871
Transfers242144
Terminations002
Non-renewals000
Reacquired by franchisor020
Ceased — other reasons0112
Outlets at end284430485
Net change+136+146+55

The lender's view

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

Banks have made 144 SBA-backed loans to Stretch Lab franchisees since 2018. Only 18 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, 4 of 36 resolved loans charged off (11.1%). That raw figure mixes every approval year since 2018 — 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. 75% of the brand's loans have not resolved yet.

Loss vs same-year loans

—

18 seasoned resolved · 30 needed

All-time charge-off · raw

11.1%

4 of 36 resolved, every approval year

Loss given default

—

charged-off $ ÷ approved $, defaulted loans

Avg. loan · FY2020+

$243,715

what recent franchisees borrowed

Median time to default

—

shown with 10+ defaults

Lenders · FY21+ vs FY16–20

40 vs 11

distinct banks still lending

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

9'19030'220'23

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

The owner's side of the deal

FDD × federal loan record

Who finances it

The Huntington National Bank

36.8% of this brand's loans

That lender charges off 9.9% of its resolved SBA loans to other franchise brands in the FOIA file, vs 14.8% nationally — a read on that lender's portfolio mix, not a finding about the bank.

Who buys it

47.0%

borrowers with no other franchise SBA loan on record

The rest already owned at least one other franchise. Across the corpus, brands bought mostly by repeat operators have charged off less often than brands sold mostly to newcomers (see methodology).

Does experience help here?

Not enough resolved loans to split

Computed from 144 SBA 7(a)/504 loans matched to Stretch Lab by SBA franchise code in the SBA FOIA file. Debt service assumes level amortization at the average disclosed term and rate. Owner-level splits rely on borrower-name matching and may misclassify. A lender's rate excludes its loans to this brand, so it reads the lender, not the brand.

What it costs — and what it drags

FDD Items 5–7 · fees, investment, royalty

Buying in means a $65,000 franchise fee (Item 5) and a total investment of $269K–$610K (Item 7). The franchisor publishes an earnings claim (Item 19) — read its methodology closely.

To open (Item 7)

$269K–$610K

all-in investment range

Franchise fee (Item 5)

$65,000

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 Stretch Lab’s filings. Set your own figure and check it against this brand's Item 19 and what owners tell you.

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 Stretch Lab with a buyer-paid CPA

How the earnings claim is built

FDD ITEM 19 · BASIS · 2025 FDD

The headline figure is Average Gross Revenue for calendar 2024 (Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2024 Measurement Period), for 417 of 485 units, leaving out did not operate entire Measurement Period, non-traditional sites. It shows no costs, so it says nothing about what an owner keeps.

Graded on three things the filing states: coverage (2 points if the figure covers at least 75% of the units it is compared with, 1 point for 50–75%), centre (2 points if it prints both a median and a mean, 1 for one of them), and costs (2 points for costs through a profit line or full cost detail, 1 for some cost items). 5–6 points = More complete, 3–4 = Partial, 0–2 = Limited. The grade describes the disclosure, not the business.

PartialCovers 417 of 485 units (86%) · median and mean · no expenses
Show the basis ↓
What is measuredAverage Gross Revenue (revenue)
Periodcalendar 2024 (Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2024 Measurement Period)
Whose resultsFranchised outlets
Units included417 of 485 Studios in operation in the US at Dec 31, 2024 (all franchised)
Left out
  • did not operate entire Measurement Period (68)
  • non-traditional sites
Average (mean)$556K
Median$536K
Mean vs medianmean 3.9% above median
Met or beat the average187 / 45%
Costs shownNone — sales only
Wherep. 74 (Item 19 runs pp. 73–79)
The filing's words“Of the 485 Studios, 417 were Qualified Studios, and therefore, 68 Studios were excluded below because they did not operate for the entire Measurement Period.”

Modeled risk

FDD Risk Score · a prediction from disclosure and loan-file features

Lower risk · directional · modeled

The model puts this brand in its lower-risk band — but this brand has too few seasoned SBA loans to check the score against, so read it as a band, not a number.

Risk percentile

Lower risk

Directional · no point estimate

Modeled · vs same-year loans

band only

too few seasoned loans to check

Top drivers: Share financed by high-loss lenders (lowers) · System size (log units) (lowers) · Item 20 exit rate (lowers) · Share of buyers who are first-time operators (raises). Too few seasoned SBA loans to check the score — read it as a band. A linear scorecard trained on brands' vintage-adjusted SBA loss records; full spec and cross-validated accuracy on the methodology page. A score is context, not a verdict.

Public records

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

We have no verified public-record signals published for Stretch Lab. 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 Stretch Lab 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 Stretch Lab has disclosed. Each one carries the number it came from, so you can check the answer against the record.

  1. 01

    Stretch Lab’s own Item 20 shows 14 of 428 franchised outlets left the system in fiscal 2024 — about 3.3%. 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

    44 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

    Stretch Lab makes an earnings claim in Item 19. Does your unit look like that number — and do you know which units they included to build it?

    Item 19 is legal to build from a flattering subset. Ask whether they excluded new units, closed units, or company stores.

    FDD Item 19 · 2025

  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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Before you sign anythingfree · 30 min · no commission

A broker is usually paid by the franchisor to place you. I'm paid only by you, never by a franchisor you're considering — and the job is pressure-testing Stretch Lab’s numbers, including talking you out of a bad deal.

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Own or owned a Stretch Lab — or represent the franchisor?no appointment · read by a person

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.

Stretch Lab franchise questions, answered from the filings

How many Stretch Lab franchised outlets left the system last year?

In Stretch Lab's latest FDD Item 20 (fiscal 2024), 14 of 428 franchised outlets left the system — an exit rate of 3.3% — compared with a 5.2% median across 35 comparable systems (fitness) 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 Stretch Lab franchise cost?

Per Stretch Lab's 2025 FDD, buying in requires an initial franchise fee of $65,000 (Item 5) and a total initial investment of $269K–$610K (Item 7).

What royalty does Stretch Lab charge?

Stretch Lab charges an ongoing royalty of 8.0% of gross sales, per Item 6 of its 2025 FDD.

Does Stretch Lab disclose earnings (Item 19)?

Yes — Stretch Lab makes a financial performance representation in Item 19 of its 2025 FDD. Read it closely: franchisors choose which units and which metrics to include.