From the filed FDD — automated extraction, check the source
2024 FDD · 1+ year old
TIDE CLEANERS
Dry cleaning & garment care · parent company: not identified
Tide Cleaners is a dry cleaning and laundry service franchise carrying the Tide consumer-detergent brand. It offers garment cleaning, alterations, and often pickup/delivery and 24-hour locker drop-off. A franchisee operates a cleaning location (or network of drop-off points), managing garment processing and customer service.
TIDE CLEANERS net unit count grew 8.4% 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 8% (2022–2024: 227 → 246); the fiscal 2024 exit rate was 1.3%, below the 4.6% median across 40 comparable systems (cleaning & restoration).
Exit rate · fiscal 2024
1.3%
vs 4.6% median across 40 comparable systems (cleaning & restoration)
Cost to open
$40K–$2.5M
Item 7 total investment range
SBA loan losses
No loan record
no SBA 7(a)/504 loans found for this brand
Email me when this brand’s record changes
A weekly check for new filings, changes to disclosed costs or earnings, SBA loan totals, and verified public-record events. Only changes to these 1 selected brand. No email when nothing changes. Coverage depends on when source data reaches our database.
Unsubscribe in any alert. We never sell your email.
Data as of 2026-10-29. Figures come from TIDE CLEANERS'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
The sources broadly agree, and the verdict follows the FDD's operating record.
FDD record · Item 20
Strong operating record
Units grew 8% (2022–2024: 227 → 246); exit rate 1.3% (fiscal 2024) vs 4.6% median.
SBA loans · vs same-year loans
No SBA loans found
No 7(a)/504 loans matched to this brand.
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
latest consecutive years · Item 20 Table 1
terminations + ceased-ops vs. all exits · Table 3
transfers vs. base · Table 3
actual vs. projected openings · Table 5
Item 19 disclosure + completeness · shown, not counted in the verdict
Systemwide units
2022–2024
Survival record
FDD Item 20 · outlet status by year
In fiscal 2024, 3 of 223 franchised outlets left the system — an exit rate of 1.3% (fiscal 2024), vs a 4.6% median across 40 comparable systems (cleaning & restoration). 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 ↓Hide the evidence ↑
| Status (FTC) | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outlets at start | 214 | 227 | 232 |
| Opened | 14 | 12 | 26 |
| Transfers | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Terminations | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Non-renewals | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Reacquired by franchisor | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Ceased — other reasons | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Outlets at end | 227 | 232 | 246 |
| Net change | +13 | +5 | +14 |
What it costs — and what it drags
FDD Items 5–7 · fees, investment, royalty
Buying in means a $50,000 franchise fee (Item 5) and a total investment of $40K–$2.5M (Item 7). The franchisor publishes an earnings claim (Item 19) — read its methodology closely.
To open (Item 7)
$40K–$2.5M
all-in investment range
Franchise fee (Item 5)
$50,000
upfront, one-time
Royalty (Item 6)
6.5%
of sales, ongoing
Starts at a placeholder of $400K — a round figure for the sector, not from TIDE CLEANERS’ filings. Set your own figure and check it against this brand's Item 19 and what owners tell you.
Royalty you'd pay / yr
$26K
6.5% of sales, before profit
Over a 10-yr term
$260K
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 labor, vehicles, supplies, insurance, 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 TIDE CLEANERS with a buyer-paid CPAHow the earnings claim is built
FDD ITEM 19 · BASIS · 2024 FDD
The headline figure is Average Annual Gross Sales (Plant Stores) for Covered Period Jul 1, 2023 - Jun 30, 2024, for 53 of 246 units, leaving out consolidated-reporting Conversion Stores, did not operate entire Covered Period, Central Plant Stores (no sales) and others. The mean is 7% above the median, so a minority of high-volume units pulls the average up.
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.
Show the basis ↓Hide the evidence ↑
| What is measured | Average Annual Gross Sales (Plant Stores) (gross sales) |
| Period | Covered Period Jul 1, 2023 - Jun 30, 2024 |
| Whose results | Franchised outlets |
| Units included | 53 of 246 Tide Cleaners Outlets operating in the U.S. at Jun 30, 2024 |
| Left out |
|
| Average (mean) | $1.1M |
| Median | $1.0M |
| Mean vs median | mean 7.0% above median |
| Met or beat the average | 24/45% (exceeding) |
| Costs shown | Some cost items only |
| Where | p. 66 (Item 19 runs pp. 66–74) |
Public records
Bankruptcy, closure & federal court records · coverage is selective · dockets are not scored
We have no verified public-record signals published for TIDE CLEANERS. 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 TIDE CLEANERS 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 TIDE CLEANERS has disclosed. Each one carries the number it came from, so you can check the answer against the record.
- 01
TIDE CLEANERS’ own Item 20 shows 3 of 223 franchised outlets left the system in fiscal 2024 — about 1.3%. 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
- 02
4 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
- 03
You pay 6.5% 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
- 04
TIDE CLEANERS 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 · 2024
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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?
I'll email you the printable version, and tell you if TIDE CLEANERS’ numbers move — a new filing, a rising exit rate, a distress signal. Unsubscribe in one click.
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 TIDE CLEANERS’ numbers, including talking you out of a bad deal.
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.
TIDE CLEANERS franchise questions, answered from the filings
How many TIDE CLEANERS franchised outlets left the system last year?
In TIDE CLEANERS's latest FDD Item 20 (fiscal 2024), 3 of 223 franchised outlets left the system — an exit rate of 1.3% — compared with a 4.6% median across 40 comparable systems (cleaning & restoration) 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 TIDE CLEANERS franchise cost?
Per TIDE CLEANERS's 2024 FDD, buying in requires an initial franchise fee of $50,000 (Item 5) and a total initial investment of $40K–$2.5M (Item 7).
What royalty does TIDE CLEANERS charge?
TIDE CLEANERS charges an ongoing royalty of 6.5% of gross sales, per Item 6 of its 2024 FDD.
Does TIDE CLEANERS disclose earnings (Item 19)?
Yes — TIDE CLEANERS makes a financial performance representation in Item 19 of its 2024 FDD. Read it closely: franchisors choose which units and which metrics to include.