If you ask a home care franchise sales rep which brand to pick, you'll get a brand answer. If you ask the data, you'll get a different answer.
The data says: tenure beats brand. A 5-year franchisee in a brand with the lowest mature median earns more than a 2-year franchisee in the brand with the highest year-2 median. Every time.
The numbers
Source: each brand's most recent FDD Item 19, via Carezano. Five brands with consistent month-windowed cohorts. The lowest mature median ($902K) still beats the highest months 12–24 median ($605K).
Mature franchisees (5+ years), median revenue:
| Brand | 5+ year median | N |
|---|---|---|
| Comfort Keepers (85+ months) | $902,478 | 532 |
| Right at Home (61+ months) | $1,218,745 | 316 |
| ComForCare (109+ months) | $1,225,978 | 126 |
| Senior Helpers (60+ months) | $1,312,197 | 232 |
| FirstLight (37+ months) | $1,392,915 | 154 |
| Griswold (5–15 years) | $1,869,005 | — |
Months 12–24 franchisees, median revenue (same brands, consistent cohort definitions — see post 1's methodology note for why we exclude Homewatch from this table):
| Brand | Months 12–24 median | N |
|---|---|---|
| Comfort Keepers (13–24 months) | $206,572 | 2 (small N) |
| ComForCare (13–24 months) | $278,916 | 21 |
| FirstLight (12–24 months) | $500,438 | 25 |
| Right at Home (13–24 months) | $532,125 | 13 |
| Senior Helpers (12–23 months) | $605,169 | 30 |
Now look at the gap.
The lowest mature median ($902K — Comfort Keepers at 85+ months) is higher than the highest months-12–24 median ($605K — Senior Helpers).
The lowest mature median in the dataset still beats the highest Year 2 median. Tenure doesn't just matter — it dwarfs brand-strength differences in the early ramp.
Even Senior Helpers' best-in-class months-12–24 cohort earns roughly 46% of what a Comfort Keepers franchisee earns five years in.
A franchisee in a brand most aspiring owners would consider "weaker" outperforms a franchisee in a brand most aspiring owners would consider "stronger" — purely because of how long they've been operating.
What this should change about how you pick a brand
If tenure matters more than brand, the question changes from:
"Which brand has the highest revenue numbers in their FDD?"
to:
"Which brand can I see myself operating for 5 years?"
Things that suddenly matter more:
- Royalty rate over 5 years. A 1% difference in royalty matters far more across 5 years of compounding revenue than it does in Year 1.
- Territory size + protection terms. You're locked in for the long haul; you want a protected territory you can grow into.
- The validation calls with current franchisees in Year 4–5. Their answer to "would you do it again" is your single best signal.
- Whether the franchisor's training and ops support make sense for someone running this 5+ years from now, not just for the launch.
Things that matter less than the marketing implies:
- Brand recognition with consumers. Most home care leads come from referral sources (case managers, hospital discharge, social workers), not consumer search. National brand awareness matters at the margin; local relationships matter more.
- Year 1 ramp tools. Every brand pitches their onboarding. Year 1 is rough at every brand. The differences between brands' Year 1 numbers are smaller than the variance within each brand's Year 1 cohort.
The caveat that matters
The 5+ year mature cohorts are big — n=532 at Comfort Keepers, n=316 at Right at Home, n=232 at Senior Helpers. That means they're medians of long-term survivors. Franchisees who failed in Year 1 or Year 2 aren't in the mature cohort because they're not operating anymore.
So the mature median isn't pure "what tenure does to revenue." It's "what tenure does to revenue for the operators who were good enough to make it that long."
Tenure also selects for operator quality. You can't just outlast the curve — you have to actually run a good agency for 5 years. The data tells you the prize is real. It doesn't tell you you'll automatically win it.
What to do with this
If you're shopping brands right now, three concrete next steps:
- Read Item 19 of the FDDs you're considering. Specifically the median, the % of franchisees who hit the average, and the spread between low and high.
- Discount your decision-weight on Year 1 brand differences. They matter less than they look.
- Get on the phone with two Year 4–5 franchisees per brand — not the ones the franchisor introduces you to. Ask them how Year 2 went and whether they'd buy this brand again.
The brand you pick will affect how much you pay in royalties for 5 years. The decision to stick with it for 5 years will affect whether you make any money at all.
One important caveat to this argument: brand strength does drive a real, measurable advantage in year-one customer acquisition cost — see the franchise vs. independent year-one growth gap for the math. So while tenure beats brand on the long arc, brand is still a meaningful tailwind in the early ramp. Both can be true.
Sources: Comfort Keepers FDD 2025 (Item 19, revenue by tenure); Right at Home FDD 2024 (Item 19, revenue by tenure); ComForCare FDD 2026 (Item 19, revenue by tenure); Senior Helpers FDD 2025 (Item 19, table by territory tenure); FirstLight Home Care FDD 2026 (Item 19, revenue by tenure); Griswold Home Care FDD 2025 (Item 19, Part II by tenure); Homewatch CareGivers FDD 2025 (Item 19, Table 1-A). Data pulled from Carezano's franchise database. All figures are gross sales (top line), not profit. Franchise data only — independent (non-franchised) agencies are not represented and typically ramp slower.