Cleaning
Spaulding Decon Franchise
A biohazard, crime scene, hoarding, and decontamination cleanup franchise operated from a home-based Operations Center rather than a storefront. Founded by Laura Spaulding in Brandon, Florida in 2014 and franchising since 2015. The franchised system contracted sharply in 2023 -- from 41 outlets down to 14, with terminations or closures across Georgia, Florida, California, Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, and elsewhere -- and no newer FDD has surfaced in either California or Minnesota's registries since, so it is not clear from public filings whether the system has since stabilized.
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 Spaulding Decon'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
$49,500
Total to open
$162,510–$204,550
Ongoing royalty
8% 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 cleaning industry average, not a figure from Spaulding Decon's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$322,510 – $364,550
Startup investment
$162,510–$204,550
Royalty per year (8%)
$32,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$160,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Spaulding Decon's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical cleaning profit margin (~20%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.
Defaulted to a general cleaning industry benchmark, not a figure from Spaulding Decon'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
2.0–2.6 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Spaulding Decon is currently losing locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.
Is Spaulding Decon 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
ShrinkingFrom Item 20 of Spaulding Decon's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 27 | 37 | +10 |
| 2022 | 37 | 41 | +4 |
| 2023 | 41 | 14 | -27 |
Most recent year (2023): lost 27 franchised units, ending the year at 14 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)
Initial training totals 128 hours (80 classroom at the Tampa, FL headquarters or virtually, 48 on-the-job) for the franchisee plus one Designated Manager, run under President Laura Spaulding, who has led the business since 2005. The franchise is designed to run from a home office ("Operations Center") rather than a leased storefront -- no site-selection assistance is provided since a home office is the standard assumption.
Territory protection (Item 12)
Designated Territory sized by population (up to 350,000 people) rather than a fixed radius or zip-code list -- not exclusive, so Spaulding Decon may compete or license other franchisees elsewhere, but it will not shrink your territory if the population inside it grows. Up to 10% of Gross Sales may come from outside the Designated Territory; exceeding that or servicing another franchisee's territory without consent risks a fine of up to $20,000.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
10-year term with one 10-year renewal option (renewal fee $10,000). Disputes go through internal review, then non-binding mediation in Tampa, FL, with litigation venued in Hillsborough County, FL or the Middle District of Florida; non-compete after termination is 2 years within a 15-mile radius of the former territory (or any other Spaulding Decon territory).
How Spaulding Decon compares to other Cleaning franchises
Across the 7 cleaning franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $113,364–$157,614, with royalties averaging around 7.3% of gross sales (based on the 6 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).
Keep going
- Spaulding Decon and ecomaids are both cleaning franchises; ecomaids's total investment starts about $33,361 lower than Spaulding Decon's. ecomaids Franchise
- Spaulding Decon and Merry Maids are both cleaning franchises; Merry Maids's total investment starts about $35,630 lower than Spaulding Decon's. Merry Maids Franchise
Where this came from: Spaulding Decon only has an actual FDD on file with California DFPI from 2021 (dfpi id 365724, app-21816); this entry is instead sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry, MN File No. 8203/10963, Clean FDD issued December 31, 2021, filed with MN 10/9/2024, effective 10/9/2024 -- the newest verifiable FDD found in either registry, though itself now several years old. Item 5: $49,500 initial franchise fee for a Designated Territory of up to 350,000 people (scaling up by $0.14/person above that; discounted for a 2nd-7th unit by an existing franchisee, $42,000 down to $30,000). Item 6: royalty is the greater of 8% of weekly Gross Sales or a Minimum Royalty (4% for subcontracted construction build-back services); a separate Brand Fund contribution applies. Item 7 Total: $162,510-$204,550. Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed: the -27 net change in 2023 (41 -> 14 franchised outlets, company-owned dropped from 3 to 0) is real and matches the state-by-state Table No. 3 breakdown, not a parsing artifact. Item 19 discloses a financial performance representation, but its data table did not extract cleanly from this filing's PDF text -- read Item 19 directly in the source FDD rather than relying on a figure here. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2024-10-09. 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.