Benchmarks
These are the third-party numbers ourcommercial facility calculator is calibrated against and checked against. Each row names where it came from. They are secondary sources — industry write-ups and franchise disclosure summaries — not audited operator financials, and they should be treated as a sanity range rather than a forecast. Retrieved 7 August 2026.
| Measure | Published figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bay utilization, first year Share of total open bay-hours that are billed. The single most sensitive input in any facility model. | ~33% average; 28–41% achievable | golfoclock, 200+ venues |
| Bay utilization, year two to three Applied to a full twelve-hour day this overshoots the published per-bay revenue ceiling, which suggests it is quoted against a prime window. | 50–65% at well-run venues | golfoclock, 200+ venues |
| Revenue per bay per year The cross-check our calculator runs against every configuration, in band or out of it. | $45,000 – $90,000 | industry benchmark |
| Equipment, per bay Mid-range is described as the sweet spot for most commercial facilities. | entry $10k–18k · mid $20k–35k · premium $40k–70k · tour $45k–90k | golfoclock / Sports Carnival |
| Build-out Flooring, electrical, lighting, seating, sound, service counter. Varies most with the condition of the space. | $50,000 – $150,000 | golfoclock |
| Total startup Our model reproduces both the range and the four-bay typical figure. | $150,000 – $500,000; four bays in second-generation retail $200,000 – $300,000 | golfoclock / Delta Capital |
| Floor area The two figures do not compose — four bays at 250–400 gives 1,000–1,600 — so the per-bay figure evidently excludes back-of-house, bar and circulation. | 250–400 sq ft per bay; 2,000–4,000 sq ft for four bays with a lounge | golfoclock |
| Monthly cost to stay neutral, four bays Our model reproduces this band once a hired manager and urban rent are present, which suggests the published figure assumes both. | $21,000 – $48,000 | golfoclock |
| Break-even Two of the three ways our calculator reports break-even are checked against these. | $75–$100 per bay-hour; 210–640 billed hours a month | golfoclock |
| Course and multiplayer licensing Commercial licensing, distinct from a consumer subscription. | $1,000 – $3,000 per bay per year | golfoclock |
| Maintenance reserve Held for repairs and replacement, not spent evenly. | 5–8% of annual equipment cost | golfoclock |
| Consumables, four bays Balls, tees, tokens, cleaning and paper goods. | $500 – $1,200 per month | golfoclock |
| Five Iron Golf, average unit volume The category extreme, cited for scale. Never used as a model default — a fourteen-bay flagship in a dense metro is not the venue most people are pricing. | $1.83M – $2.7M; median $2,210,894 | Five Iron Golf FDD Item 19 |
Utilization is the number that decides whether a facility works, and it is also the number most easily quoted in two incompatible ways. A venue running 65% of its prime evening and weekend hours and a venue running 65% of every hour it is open are not remotely the same business.
The arithmetic makes the gap visible. At $50 per bay-hour, the published $45,000–$90,000 per bay per year is 75–150 billed hours a month. A twelve-hour, thirty-day month offers 360 bay-hours per bay, so the published revenue implies 21% to 42% of total open hours. The first-year average of 33% sits inside that. The mature range of 50–65% does not — at 55% the same venue would bill about $119,000 per bay per year, a third above the published ceiling.
Both figures can be right if they measure different denominators. Our calculator uses total open bay-hours throughout, says so wherever the word appears, and flags any configuration whose implied revenue per bay leaves the published band — including configurations that look good.
No figure on this page is ours, and none of our own assumptions appear on it. Those live on the methodology page, labelled as assumptions, and there are more of them than there are published figures here. Keeping the two apart is the point of having two pages.