What a realistic greenfield car wash pro forma actually looks like in 2026

Here's what a realistic express tunnel pro forma looks like in 2026, built from public operator disclosures (Mister Car Wash, Driven Brands pre-divestiture), Rinsed operating benchmarks, ICA sentiment surveys, and our team's project and operating experience. Our team has delivered 60+ sites and closed $300M+ across our careers. The budgets, ramp and return targets below are underwriting assumptions, not promised results.

The all-in basis you should expect

For an express exterior tunnel on owned real estate in the Southeast, these are our 2026 planning ranges. Construction inputs rose modestly in 2025 per Gordian's RSMeans data: materials up 3.1%, labor up 4.1%, and equipment up 4.5%. Those are general construction inputs, not a car wash-specific index. Based on our recent projects, pay stations and POS run $200K-$350K, chemistry systems $70K-$110K, soft costs $320K-$525K, and pre-opening costs $180K-$300K. Confirm each allowance against the site plan and written quotes.

Variance is mostly land cost plus site complexity. The equipment package itself is more consistent than people think. Premium West Coast comparables can run over $10M all-in, but those are outliers for Southeast underwriting.

Revenue ramp, what to actually model

Most pro formas I review assume a 24-month ramp to stabilization. In our experience it's closer to 30-42 months in most markets, and the curve isn't linear. Year 1 is mostly grand-opening promotional bleed; the membership flywheel kicks in during Year 2; stabilization lands in Year 3 to early Year 4 in a healthy market.

Year 1

• Cars per day: 180-230 average
• Membership penetration (members ÷ unique monthly customers): 4-7%
• Average ticket (blended): $11.50-$14.00
• Revenue: $750K-$1.1M

Year 1 is grand opening promo bleed and brand awareness. Don't model heroically.

Year 2

• Cars per day: 240-320 average
• Membership penetration: 8-12%
• Average ticket: $13.00-$15.50
• Revenue: $1.2M-$1.7M

Year 2 is where the membership flywheel starts. If membership growth stalls here, you have a marketing or product problem.

Year 3

• Cars per day: 280-380 average
• Membership penetration: 12-16%
• Average ticket: $14.50-$17.00
• Revenue: $1.5M-$2.1M

Year 4-5 (stabilized)

• Cars per day: 320-420 average
• Membership penetration: 14-18%
• Average ticket: $15.50-$18.50
• Revenue: $1.8M-$2.6M

Above $2.6M in stabilized revenue is top-tier for the Southeast. Above $3.0M usually involves a uniquely strong site or a premium market. Mister Car Wash's full-year 2025 results (>$1.05B across roughly 500+ sites) imply average site revenue well below $2.6M, so anything above the high end deserves scrutiny on the underlying assumptions.

Cost structure, where the model breaks

Our planning ranges for stabilized operating costs as a percent of revenue. Individual low and high endpoints sum to 44-68%; a site's actual budget needs a consistent set of assumptions within those ranges:

The stabilized EBITDA margin benchmarks we use for express tunnels, by revenue tier: $750K-$1M sites at 40-45%; $1M-$1.5M at 42.5-47.5%; $1.5M+ at 47.5-55%. Top-decile single sites can clear 55%+ but those are outliers, not the underwriting base case.

The biggest gap between strong and weak operators isn't revenue, it's labor and maintenance discipline.

Returns, what the deal actually pencils to

An illustrative site on a $5.5M all-in basis with $2.0M stabilized revenue and a 45% EBITDA margin produces $900K of EBITDA. The exit multiples and return ranges below are our underwriting assumptions and targets. Cash-on-cash return and IRR also depend on debt terms, ramp cash flows, capex and sale costs; they do not follow from stabilized EBITDA alone:

• Stabilized EBITDA: $900K
• Our Year 7 exit assumption for a strong single site: 6.5-8.5x EBITDA on an OpCo+PropCo basis.
• Our platform-sale exit assumption: 9-11x EBITDA on an OpCo basis, after deducting market rent from the operating earnings.
• Our stabilized cash-on-cash return target: 12-17%.
• Our unlevered IRR target (7-year hold): 13-18%.
• Our financed IRR target (60-65% LTV, 7-year hold): 20-27%.

The basis matters more than the headline multiple. OpCo-only deals (typical for platform sales where the underlying real estate has been sale-leasebacked) trade higher because EBITDA is measured after rent. OpCo+PropCo deals (typical for single-site fee-simple exits) trade lower because EBITDA is measured before rent and the buyer is paying for the land. Don't compare them directly without normalizing.

Reference transactions for the platform band: Whistle Express acquired Take 5 Car Wash from Driven Brands in April 2025 for $385M across 385 sites, with roughly 8x headline pricing on reported EBITDA above $50M. Whistle also executed a sale-leaseback at closing, so reconcile the real estate and rent basis before treating it as a pure OpCo comparable. Mister Car Wash's take-private by Leonard Green & Partners was announced February 18, 2026 and closed May 19, 2026 at approximately $3.1B enterprise value. That is approximately 9x FY2025 adjusted EBITDA of $345.4M per public analysis, consistent with the middle of our platform band. It is a historical-earnings multiple, not an NTM multiple.

B+E's August 2025 car wash listings averaged a 6.33% asking cap rate, approximately 15.8x the rent line. Its July 2026 listings averaged 6.32%. These are historical asking benchmarks, not verified closing cap rates. Our blended OpCo+PropCo exit range of approximately 6.5-8x also depends on post-rent business earnings and the business multiple; it cannot be derived from the cap rate alone.

Below the ranges above, the deal isn't competitive with comparable real estate plays. Above those numbers, double-check your assumptions. And before you commit to greenfield, run the buy-vs-build comparison: in markets where comparable stabilized sites are trading at or below your $4.0M-$7.5M replacement cost, acquisition is often the better risk-adjusted move than development.

The five assumptions that break models

1. Ramp speed. People model 24-month stabilization. In our experience, we need to plan for 30-42 months.
2. Membership penetration. Our mature-site assumption is 14-18% of unique monthly customers. That is separate from retail-to-member conversion: Rinsed's Q4 2025 report shows 15.6% conversion for sites with over 4,000 members, 10.3% for sites with 2,000-4,000, and just under 3% below 2,000. Those are membership-size cohorts, not performance quartiles. Mister's Q3 2025 reported capture rate above 10% is another historical conversion reference, not a penetration target.
3. Average ticket. People model $18 from Day 1. You get there in Year 4 if you're disciplined on pricing and tier mix.
4. Labor cost. People model 14%. In our experience it's 16-22% in most Southeast markets in 2026.
5. Maintenance capex. People model $0.03/car. We carry $0.08-$0.12 per car for recurring capex on a stabilized tunnel based on our operating experience; for aging equipment we carry $0.25 per car or higher, subject to inspection.

Build your model with realistic assumptions and pressure-test by running it at -15% on revenue and +20% on opex. If it still pencils, you have a real deal. If it doesn't, you're hoping for upside that the operating data says you probably won't get.

The 2026 reality check

Two market signals every developer should be reading:

• ZIPS Car Wash filed Chapter 11 in February 2025 with $654M of debt across 260 locations. The CEO publicly cited oversaturation from "900 new car washes annually." Multiple markets are now over-built.
• Driven Brands sold its entire US car wash business (Take 5 Car Wash, 385 sites) to Whistle Express in April 2025 for $385M, exiting the US wash business. That is a corporate portfolio decision, not a verdict on every local development opportunity.

The implication for greenfield underwriting: site selection matters more than it did in 2021-22. The capital cycle peak is over. Sites that would have penciled in 2022 because the rising tide lifted everything may not pencil in 2026.

How we model deals at WLG

Every site we underwrite goes through a 5-year discounted cash flow with sensitivity tables on six variables: ramp speed, peak CPD, membership penetration, ARPM, churn, and labor cost. We won't recommend a site to capital partners that doesn't clear a 13% unlevered IRR at base case and an 8% IRR at downside case (revenue -15%, opex +20%). The IRR benchmarks have come down from where our team set them in 2022; the discipline is unchanged.