Trampoline Park Franchise Fees: The Cost Behind 6 Percent
Sky Zone’s 2026 franchise disclosure document sets the royalty at 6 percent of gross sales. A few pages later, the same document commits the franchisee to a 3 percent ad fee, a 4 percent local advertising requirement and a $1,480 monthly technology fee. The committed share of gross sales is not 6 percent. It is about 13.
This gap between the headline royalty and the committed fee stack is the number that decides whether a trampoline park franchise deal works, and it is the number least discussed in franchise sales conversations. A buyer who compares brands on royalty alone is comparing 6 percent against 7 percent while missing a five-point spread in the total stack.
This article assembles the published fee schedules, from Items 5 and 6 of the franchise disclosure documents (FDDs) of the three largest trampoline park franchisors in the United States: Sky Zone, Urban Air and Altitude. It converts those percentages into dollars using the revenue figures the same documents disclose, and it runs the result through the break-even model we published earlier. Every percentage here comes from a filed disclosure or a summary that quotes it line by line; where summaries disagree, we say so.
One word of method first. An FDD is the document United States franchisors must give a prospective buyer at least 14 days before any agreement is signed. Items 5 and 6 list the initial and ongoing fees. Item 19, when present, discloses financial performance. We cite the FDD year for every figure because these numbers move between years.
1. The Fee Schedule: Three Brands Side by Side
The table below reads each brand’s most recent fee schedule the way an operator would: line by line, including the lines beyond the royalty.
| Fee line | Sky Zone (2026 FDD) | Urban Air (2025 FDD) | Altitude (2025 FDD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $75,000 | $100,000 | $65,000 |
| Royalty on gross sales | 6% | 7% | 6% |
| National ad fund contribution | 3% now, up to 4%; was 2% in the 2025 FDD | Up to 5%, currently 0% | 2% brand fund |
| Local advertising requirement | 4%, with a $12,000 first-month minimum | Up to 6%, currently 5% | None required now; brand fund plus local capped at 5% |
| Technology fee | $1,480 per month | Not stated in the summaries we checked | $250 per month |
| Committed stack, current | About 13% | About 12% | 8% |
Two observations follow directly. First, the headline royalties sit within one point of each other, 6 to 7 percent, while the committed stacks span 8 to 13 percent. The royalty is nearly the least differentiating number on the page. Second, the “currently” wording matters. Sky Zone’s ad fee rose from 2 percent in the 2025 FDD to 3 percent in the 2026 FDD, and Urban Air’s national fund can move from 0 to 5 percent at the franchisor’s discretion. A stack quoted at signing is a floor, not a fixed price.
Even the initial fee moves. One summary of Urban Air’s 2024 FDD listed a $60,000 franchise fee; the 2025 FDD lists $100,000. Altitude’s 2025 FDD schedules $65,000 for a first park, $55,000 for a second and $45,000 for each additional park, and discloses that it accepted reduced initial fees of $7,500 to $40,000 from some franchisees in its last fiscal year. Negotiated reality often differs from the published schedule, in both directions.
2. What Each Fee Line Actually Buys
2.1 The royalty: permanent, and tied to sales, not profit
What it is A percentage of gross sales, paid monthly, for the right to operate under the brand with its systems and support.
What it decides It comes out of the owner’s margin in good months and bad. Because it is defined on gross sales, it does not shrink when your costs rise. In the Sky Zone Item 19 tables, the disclosed EBITDA figures are calculated after royalties and ad contributions, so the roughly 22 percent average EBITDA margin across 106 franchised parks is already net of these payments.
What to verify The agreement’s definition of Gross Sales. Whether discounts, refunds and gift card redemptions are deducted before the percentage is applied changes the real rate.
2.2 The ad fund: a contribution without a local guarantee
What it is A percentage paid into a national or brand-level advertising fund, on top of the royalty.
What it decides None of the three brands promises that a specific share of the fund is spent inside your trade area. The money supports the system, and the system supports the brand, but a buyer underwriting a specific site should not count that spend as local demand generation.
2.3 The local marketing minimum: your spend, still committed
What it is A required expenditure in your own market. Sky Zone requires 4 percent of gross sales with a $12,000 minimum in the first month; Urban Air currently requires 5 percent.
What it decides This is not a payment to the franchisor, but it is a committed percentage of revenue nonetheless. In a break-even model it behaves exactly like a fee: it must be spent before the business can be considered compliant, whatever the season delivers.
2.4 The technology fee: fixed dollars with a wide spread
What it is A monthly charge for the booking, point-of-sale and management platform the brand mandates.
What it decides At Sky Zone’s $1,480 per month the annual cost is $17,760; at Altitude’s $250 per month it is $3,000, a difference of 5.9 times for a function both park types need. Fixed-dollar fees matter more in a weak year, precisely when a percentage fee would shrink.
2.5 The percentage costs that hide outside Item 6
What it is Sky Zone requires every franchisee to join its Master Insurance Program, priced in the 2026 FDD summary at 2.4 to 13.0 percent of gross sales (the 2025 FDD put the range at 2 to 10 percent). Its affiliate is also the only approved supplier for attractions, socks, wristbands and balls. Altitude, by contrast, lets franchisees buy equipment from third-party suppliers.
What to verify Treat any mandatory percentage-based program as part of the fee stack, and treat captive purchasing as a price you cannot shop. Our eight-document supplier audit exists precisely because the buyer, not the brand, should control equipment verification.
3. From Percentages to Dollars on the Revenue the FDDs Disclose
Item 19 gives us the denominator. The table below lists the gross sales figures the documents themselves disclose, each labeled with its FDD year and reporting basis.
| Brand and FDD year | Reporting basis | Gross sales per park |
|---|---|---|
| Sky Zone, 2026 FDD | 106 franchised parks, average | $2,255,992 |
| Sky Zone, 2026 FDD | Franchised parks, median | $2,140,768 |
| Altitude, 2025 FDD | 64 reporting parks, average | $2,045,001 |
| Altitude, 2025 FDD | Median, per summary site | $1,919,103 |
| Urban Air, 2025 FDD | Median, per summary site | $2,922,917 |
| Urban Air, 2025 FDD | Top quartile, average | $4,960,132 |
Now apply each stack to one reference number, the Sky Zone franchised-park average of $2,255,992. The calculation is multiplication only: annual fee dollars = gross sales × stack rate, and the technology fee is added as a fixed line.
| Stack applied | Rate | Annual dollars on $2,255,992 |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty only, Sky Zone | 6% | $135,360 |
| Royalty only, Urban Air | 7% | $157,919 |
| Altitude full stack | 8% | $180,479 |
| Urban Air current stack | 12% | $270,719 |
| Sky Zone full stack | 13% | $293,279 |
| Sky Zone stack plus technology fee | 13% plus fixed | $311,039 |
Two conversions make the scale concrete. Over the 10-year initial term, the Sky Zone stack on an average park comes to roughly $2.93 million, which is more than the entire initial investment estimate for an Altitude park, $2.105 to $3.478 million in its 2025 FDD. And on a monthly view, using the one operator in this sector that discloses per-visit figures: Lelantos Holdings reported that its McAlester park took $243,079.27 across 8,360 check-ins in July 2026, which is $29.08 per check-in. At an 8 percent stack that month’s fees would have been $19,446; at 13 percent, $31,600. On the independent operator’s books, that line simply does not exist.
Where these numbers come from: FDD fee schedules from Items 5 and 6; revenue from Item 19 as quoted by the summaries listed in Sources; the per-check-in figure from Lelantos Holdings’ own monthly disclosure. We did not model any park whose revenue has not been published.
4. What the Fee Stack Does to Break-Even
In our earlier break-even analysis, a 31,512 sq ft (2,928 m²) reference park carried a fixed cost stack of $1,053,414 per year against a contribution of $23.77 per check-in, giving a floor of about 123 check-ins a day. The fee stack attacks the contribution side. The arithmetic is one subtraction and one division:
Contribution after fees = $23.77 − ($29.08 × stack rate). Required check-ins per year = $1,053,414 ÷ contribution after fees.
| Stack | Rate on spend | Fee per check-in | Contribution left | Check-ins needed per year | Change vs base |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No franchise | 0% | $0.00 | $23.77 | 44,313 | Base |
| Altitude stack | 8% | $2.33 | $21.44 | 49,125 | +10.9% |
| Urban Air stack, current | 12% | $3.49 | $20.28 | 51,943 | +17.2% |
| Sky Zone stack, 2026 | 13% | $3.78 | $19.99 | 52,698 | +18.9% |
On a 365-day year, the daily floor moves from 123 check-ins to about 136 under the Altitude stack, 144 under the Urban Air stack and 146 under the Sky Zone stack. Put differently, signing the fullest fee schedule is equivalent to handing the franchisor the output of roughly 23 extra check-ins every day, before the owner takes anything.
One boundary on this table: we applied each percentage to the $29.08 spend-per-check-in figure because it is the only per-visit revenue an operator in this sector publishes monthly. In the agreements themselves, royalty is defined on Gross Sales, whose exact composition varies by contract. Treat the table as an illustration of magnitude, and rerun it with your own projected spend mix before you sign anything.
5. How the Fee Stack Compares With the Other Percentage Costs
A park’s profit and loss statement already contains several costs expressed as a percentage or per visit. The fee stack belongs in that company, and it sits near the top of it.
| Cost line | Annual dollars, reference park | Source and analysis |
|---|---|---|
| Electricity, cheapest to priciest state | $34,164 to $114,465 | Our electricity intensity analysis, CBECS and EIA data |
| Card processing | About $72,056 | Our card fee analysis |
| Sales tax, passed through to the customer | $0 to $151,168 remitted | Our per-ticket tax analysis |
| Debt service on a $1.5M loan | About $244,165 | Our loan cost analysis |
| Franchise fee stack, 8 to 13% | $180,479 to $311,039 | This article |
Three contrasts deserve emphasis. Sales tax is collected from the customer and remitted; the royalty never touches the customer and always lands on the owner. A 6 percent royalty alone, $135,360 on the reference revenue, exceeds the electricity bill of the same park in the most expensive state in the country. And at the fullest stack, $311,039 with the technology fee, the franchisor’s fee line is larger than the lender’s: our earlier analysis put annual debt service on a $1.5 million build at $244,165. On this reference park, the brand takes more per year than the bank.
The fee stack also compounds differently across the revenue quartiles. Urban Air’s 2025 FDD quartile data, as summarized, runs from a top-quartile average of $4,960,132 down to a fourth-quartile average of $1,939,750. A 12 percent stack on that bottom quartile is about $232,770 a year, against a quartile the same summary describes as carrying negative EBITDA at the low end. Percentage fees are kindest to the parks that need the least help.
6. What the FDD Data Does and Does Not Show
This article rests on FDD summaries rather than the full filed documents, and the boundaries matter:
- The summaries disagree on some lines. For Urban Air, one summary reports a brand fund of 2 percent plus a 3 percent local minimum; the line-by-line quotation we used reports a national fund at 0 percent now and a 5 percent local requirement now. Both cannot describe the same clause perfectly. We used the most granular quotation and flag the conflict.
- Percentages move between years. Sky Zone’s ad fee went from 2 to 3 percent between the 2025 and 2026 FDDs; its insurance program range widened from 2 to 10 percent to 2.4 to 13.0 percent. Verify the current FDD, not a two-year-old summary.
- Item 19 samples exclude ramp-up parks. The Sky Zone 2026 tables cover 106 of 122 franchised parks, excluding new openings, transfers and incomplete reporters, and the franchisor states that franchisee submissions were not audited. Averages are a description of survivors.
- We do not know negotiated rates. Multi-unit development deals, area development agreements and rebrand arrangements price differently. No public data exists on how much of an ad fund is spent in any given trade area.
- The per-check-in application is ours. The $29.08 figure comes from an independent, non-franchised operator. Real agreements define the base differently, sometimes including or excluding specific revenue lines.
7. A Decision Rule for Reading Any Franchise Fee Schedule
1. Compare committed stacks, not royalties. Ask for, in writing, the “currently” and “up to” figures for every Item 6 line: royalty, national fund, local minimum, technology, and any mandatory percentage-based program such as a master insurance policy. The spread between 8 and 13 percent is worth more than the spread between any two royalties.
2. Convert to your own per-check-in number. Fee per check-in = your projected spend per check-in × stack rate. If your model projects $25 of spend per visit, a 13 percent stack is $3.25 a visit; if you run a junior-heavy, $15-ticket park, it is $1.95. The same percentage costs different parks different amounts.
3. Rerun break-even before signing, not after. Required check-ins = fixed cost stack ÷ (contribution per check-in − fee per check-in). If the resulting daily floor exceeds what your site can plausibly deliver, the deal does not work at your price points, whatever the brochure says.
4. Price captive purchasing as a fee. Where the franchisor or an affiliate is the only approved supplier for attractions, the inability to collect competing quotes is an economic term, not a convenience. Our comparison of three FDD investment breakdowns shows how much of a park’s initial budget sits in exactly that line.
5. Sum the ten-year line. Multiply the stack by your revenue projection across the initial term. On the figures above, the cumulative fee line approaches or exceeds the initial investment. If you build independently, the same 12 percent becomes the budget line that funds equipment refresh, staffing depth and marketing you control; that is the economic core of the independent build proposition, and it should be argued with numbers, not slogans.
8. Summary
The published royalty rates of the three largest trampoline park franchisors differ by a single point. Their committed fee stacks differ by five, from 8 percent at Altitude to about 13 percent at Sky Zone in its 2026 FDD, before counting a master insurance program that itself runs on a percentage of sales. On the revenue the franchisors’ own documents disclose, the stacks are worth $180,000 to $311,000 a year on an average franchised park, and they push the break-even floor up by 11 to 19 percent. None of this makes franchising wrong; it makes the royalty headline the least informative number in the deal. Read Item 6 the way you would read a lease, line by line, in its current version.
Three Things You Can Do Today
1. Pull the current FDD. Any franchisor you are talking to must deliver it at least 14 days before signing. Extract Items 5, 6, 7 and 19 and check every “currently” figure against the last fiscal year.
2. Rerun your break-even with the stack included. Our attendance floor analysis gives you the fixed-cost template; insert your stack rate and your own spend-per-check-in projection.
3. Price the independent alternative with the same rigor. If the fee stack on your projected revenue is worth more than the equipment and design support you would actually receive, an independent build with a partner who itemizes every dollar deserves a place in the comparison. Our design-to-delivery process starts with a 3D layout and a quote, not a franchise agreement.
FAQ
What royalty do trampoline park franchises charge?
The headline rates are close: 6 percent of gross sales at Sky Zone and Altitude, 7 percent at Urban Air, per their 2025 and 2026 FDDs. The committed stacks, which add ad funds, local marketing minimums and technology fees, range from 8 percent at Altitude to about 12 to 13 percent at Urban Air and Sky Zone.
Is the franchise royalty calculated on revenue or on profit?
On gross sales, as defined in each franchise agreement, not on profit. The EBITDA figures franchisors disclose in Item 19 are calculated after royalty and ad contributions, so the roughly 22 percent average margin across Sky Zone’s 106 reporting franchised parks is already net of these fees.
How much does a Sky Zone franchisee pay in fees each year?
On the 106-park franchised average of $2,255,992 in gross sales: $135,360 for the 6 percent royalty, about $293,279 for the full 13 percent stack, plus a $17,760 annual technology fee, for roughly $311,039. The mandatory master insurance program adds a further 2.4 to 13.0 percent of sales.
Does the national ad fund spend money in my market?
None of the three brands guarantees a local allocation of fund contributions. The local advertising requirement, 4 percent at Sky Zone and 5 percent currently at Urban Air, is money you spend in your own market, not money the brand spends for you. No public data breaks down how fund money is allocated by territory.
What is the cheapest way to compare franchise offers fairly?
Total each offer’s committed stack, including “currently” and “up to” percentages, fixed fees and any mandatory percentage-based programs, then divide by your projected spend per check-in. Rerun your break-even with the reduced contribution figure. The brand with the lower headline royalty is frequently not the brand with the lower stack.
Sources
- FranchisesBiz, “How Much Does a Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park Franchise Owner Make?”, quoting the Sky Zone Franchise Group 2026 FDD, Items 6, 7, 19 and 20 — accessed October 29, 2026. franchisesbiz.com
- FDD Exchange, “Sky Zone Franchise FDD (2025)”, Items 5, 6 and 7 summary — accessed October 29, 2026. fddexchange.com
- Franchise Chatter, “Urban Air Adventure Park Franchise Review 2026”, quoting the 2025 FDD, Items 5, 6 and 7 — accessed October 29, 2026. franchisechatter.com
- FDD Exchange, “Urban Air Adventure Park FDD (2025)”, Items 5, 6 and 7 summary — accessed October 29, 2026. fddexchange.com
- Pulse (pulserevops.com), “Should I open or buy an Altitude Trampoline Park franchise?”, quoting the Altitude 2025 FDD, Items 5, 6 and 7 — accessed October 29, 2026. pulserevops.com
- Indoor Playground Online, “Indoor Trampoline Park Franchise Costs: 2026 FDDs Compared”, covering Altitude, Sky Zone and Urban Air fee schedules and Item 19 figures — accessed October 29, 2026. indoorplaygroundonline.com
- Frandera, FDD summaries for Sky Zone, Urban Air and Altitude (median revenue and fee summaries, 2025 FDDs) — accessed October 29, 2026. frandera.com
- Lelantos Holdings (OTCID: LNTO) press page, McAlester park July 2026 monthly revenue disclosure ($243,079.27 across 8,360 check-ins) — accessed October 29, 2026. lelantosholdings.io