Senior Care
Senior Helpers Franchise
A non-medical in-home senior care franchise offering companionship, personal care, and specialized programs (including dementia and Parkinson's care) through zip-code-defined territories. An affiliate operated the first Senior Helpers location in Towson, Maryland from May 2002, with franchising beginning in April 2005; the brand was acquired by Waud Capital Partners in a March 2024 transaction. Franchised unit count grew every year in the FDD's three-year window, while company-owned units nearly halved in 2025 as several were sold off to franchisees.
On record with state regulators
Washington State Attorney General's Office investigated "no-poach" (employee non-solicitation) provisions in Senior Helpers' franchise agreements; SH-Delaware entered an Assurance of Discontinuance in King County Superior Court in November 2019, agreeing to notify franchisees, remove the provision from Washington agreements, and drop it from the national form agreement.
Disclosed in the FDD's litigation section (Item 3)
Item 3 discloses two now-settled caregiver-negligence lawsuits by clients' families (New Jersey, settled 2017 for $150,000; Indiana, settled 2019 for $150,000) and a 2025-settled Fair Labor Standards Act wage suit against a franchisee in Ohio ($42,000 paid by the franchisee, not the company).
Every franchisor has to file a document called an FDD before they can legally sell you a franchise. Buried in it are the two things a sales rep won't volunteer: what you'll actually spend to open, and whether existing locations are opening or closing. That's what's below, pulled straight from Senior Helpers's own filing.
What it costs to open
From the filing's investment breakdown -- not a "starting at" number a sales rep quoted you.
Franchise fee
$55,000
Total to open
$176,500–$231,500
Ongoing royalty
5% of gross sales
What you'd actually spend, over time
The upfront cost is only part of it. Plug in what you expect a location to bring in, and see the real total once royalties over a few years are added on top.
Defaulted to a rough senior care industry average, not a figure from Senior Helpers's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$351,500 – $406,500
Startup investment
$176,500–$231,500
Royalty per year (5%)
$35,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$175,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Senior Helpers's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical senior care profit margin (~12%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.
Defaulted to a general senior care industry benchmark, not a figure from Senior Helpers's own filing -- this is a starting point to adjust, not a promise about what franchisees actually make.
At that profit, you'd break even in about
2.1–2.8 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Senior Helpers is opening more locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.
Is Senior Helpers actually growing?
Franchisors have to report, every year, how many locations opened, closed, or changed hands. Most franchise sites never show you this. Here it is:
Locations opened vs. closed, by year
GrowingFrom Item 20 of Senior Helpers's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 314 | 333 | +19 |
| 2024 | 333 | 355 | +22 |
| 2025 | 355 | 394 | +39 |
Most recent year (2025): gained 39 franchised units, ending the year at 394 total.
What you're actually signing up for
The cost and growth numbers above are only part of the picture. These three FDD items are the ones a prospective franchisee tends to weigh most heavily once they're past the sticker price.
Training & ongoing support (Item 11)
Item 11: pre-opening site-selection guidance, mandatory office/Center of Excellence specifications, initial training, one loaned copy of the Operations Manual, and access to the proprietary LIFE Profile assessment tool; ongoing support includes a representative's 2-day on-site visit within 6 months of opening and administration of the Marketing Fund.
Territory protection (Item 12)
Item 12: a real zip-code-defined Territory (25,000-50,000 seniors depending on the fee paid) within which SH-Delaware won't franchise or open another Senior Helpers location -- but franchisees don't receive a true exclusive territory, since the company reserves broad rights to operate similar businesses under other names, acquire competing chains, and advertise nationally.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
Item 17: 10-year initial term (5 years for a resale/transfer or a second-or-later unit), with up to 4 additional 5-year successor terms and a $5,000 renewal fee. Disputes go to non-binding mediation before litigation, which must be filed in Towson, Maryland under Maryland law; a 2-year, 5-mile non-compete applies after termination.
How Senior Helpers compares to other Senior Care franchises
Across the 4 senior care franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $124,128–$251,254, with royalties averaging around 4.6% of gross sales (based on the 4 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty). That's still a small sample -- treat it as a rough starting point, not an industry-wide benchmark.
Keep going
- Senior Helpers and Visiting Angels are both senior care franchises; Visiting Angels's total investment starts about $51,040 lower than Senior Helpers's. Visiting Angels Franchise
- Senior Helpers and Amada Senior Care are both senior care franchises; Amada Senior Care's total investment starts about $54,923 lower than Senior Helpers's. Amada Senior Care Franchise
Where this came from: Senior Helpers only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI, so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 7348, Clean FDD dated April 29, 2026 (as amended August 1, 2026), filed 8/4/2026, effective 8/12/2026. Item 5: $55,000 lump-sum fee for the standard territory (25,000-35,000 seniors), scaling to $65,000/$70,000/$75,000 for larger territories; a 15% veteran discount applies. Item 6: royalty is 5% of Gross Sales after the first year (2.5% for the first 6 months for certain new owners), plus a Marketing Fund of up to 2% (currently 1.5% of the first $2,000,000 of Gross Sales per territory per year, 0.75% above that). Item 7 Total (15): $176,500-$231,500. Item 20 Table No. 1: company-owned outlets fell from 13 to 7 in 2025 while franchised outlets kept growing. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-08-12. None of this is investment advice -- get the franchisor's current FDD and talk to a real attorney or accountant before you sign anything.
If you see a different unit count elsewhere: franchisors only have to refile their FDD annually, so the numbers here can run 6–18 months behind a franchisor's own real-time marketing claims -- which often aren't independently verified, and sometimes count signed-but-not-yet-open locations. A gap isn't necessarily an error on either side; it's two different snapshots in time from two different sources.