Pizza Franchise Cost: FDD Item 7 and Royalty by Brand

The honest answer to what a pizza franchise costs is that the format decides almost everything, and the number most people ask about, the franchise fee, is the smallest part of it. A take-and-bake or delivery-and-carryout brand can open for a few hundred thousand dollars, while a traditional dine-in restaurant can run past two million. And some of the biggest names on the list are not actually for sale to a first-time buyer.

This guide puts the major pizza brands side by side using each one’s own franchise fee (FDD Item 5), total initial investment (FDD Item 7), and royalty, and flags which brands still franchise to new outside operators. Every figure is a reported number to confirm in the brand’s current Franchise Disclosure Document, which is the only version that governs your agreement. None of it is an earnings figure.

Pizza franchise cost comparison

The recruiting brands are sorted by total-investment floor, from lowest to highest; the three hard-to-enter brands (Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, Domino’s) are grouped at the bottom regardless of floor. Fees and royalties come from each brand’s own franchise materials except where noted; where a brand does not publish current figures, the total investment is from third-party FDD trackers and is flagged to verify.

Brand	Franchise fee (Item 5)	Total investment (Item 7)	Royalty	Franchises to new operators?
Hungry Howie’s	$25,000 ($12,500 veterans)	$238,982 to $697,322	5.5%	Yes
Marco’s Pizza	$25,000	$286,727 to $807,152	5.5%	Yes
Mountain Mike’s	$15,000 to $30,000	$356,000 to $994,000 (excludes real estate)	5%	Yes
Papa Murphy’s (take-and-bake)	$15,000 to $25,000	$367,428 to $733,124	5%	Yes
Little Caesars	$20,000 ($15,000 / $0 for veterans)	$376,500 to $1,769,200	6%	Yes
Donatos	$30,000	$546,637 to $1,060,537	4%	Yes
Papa John’s	$25,000 traditional / $5,000 non-traditional	$281,485 to $890,267 traditional / $125,000 to $423,302 non-traditional	5%	Unclear, see below
Pizza Hut	$25,000 traditional	$777,000 to $2,053,500 traditional (tracker)	6%	Restrictive, see below
Domino’s	Trackers conflict ($0 to $25,000)	Trackers conflict (about $107,000 to $743,500)	5.5%	No, internal candidates only

Why the franchise fee is the smallest number

The franchise fee is what you pay to join the system, and across these brands it is usually $15,000 to $30,000, often with a veteran discount that can cut it in half or, for service-disabled veterans at Little Caesars, to zero. But that fee is a small fraction of the total. The total initial investment in FDD Item 7 covers everything to open: real estate work, buildout, ovens and equipment, signage, initial inventory, and several months of working capital. That is where the hundreds of thousands of dollars actually go. Our explainers on FDD Item 5, the franchise fee, and FDD Item 7, the total investment, cover why the two are different by an order of magnitude, and how much money you actually need is covered in our guide to starting a franchise.

Which pizza brands can you actually buy?

This is the part the cost tables leave out, and it changes the whole shortlist. Three of the biggest names are hard or impossible to enter as a new outside buyer:

• Domino’s is effectively closed to outside investors. Its own franchising page states it is only considering internal candidates, meaning a US applicant generally needs about a year of recent management experience inside a Domino’s store before applying. So its low headline numbers are not an opportunity for a first-time buyer.
• Papa John’s status is unclear. Its official site still publishes traditional and non-traditional investment figures, but a franchise directory reported it was not currently accepting inquiries, coinciding with a 2026 plan to close roughly 300 mostly franchised locations. Treat it as possibly paused and confirm directly.
• Pizza Hut is restrictive in practice, and its ownership is changing. In June 2026 its parent, Yum! Brands, agreed to sell Pizza Hut for $2.7 billion, the business outside mainland China to private-equity firm LongRange Capital and the mainland China business to Yum China Holdings, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter of 2026 subject to regulatory approval. Yum still owns the brand until then, and how a new owner will treat new franchisees is not yet known. It also has the highest total-investment floor here.

The fast-casual brands are similar. MOD Pizza and Blaze Pizza are generally not selling to first-time single-unit buyers, and both run well above the low-cost brands on total investment. So if you are a first-time buyer, the genuinely open, lower-cost options are the delivery-and-carryout and take-and-bake brands near the top of the table.

Royalties and ongoing fees

The purchase price is only the start; the royalty and ad fund are what you pay for the life of the agreement. Across these brands, royalties run about 4 to 6 percent of sales, with Donatos at the low end near 4 percent and Little Caesars and Pizza Hut near 6 percent. On top of that, every brand charges a separate advertising or marketing fund contribution, often several more points, and some add local co-op or digital-order fees. Those recurring costs matter more to long-term economics than the one-time fee, so read FDD Item 6 closely and model the royalty against realistic sales before you commit.

What to do next

Use this table to build a shortlist, then do the real work: request the current FDD for each brand you are serious about, read Items 5, 6, and 7 with a franchise attorney, and confirm the brand is actually accepting new franchisees in your market. If your priority is the lowest possible entry cost, our cheapest pizza franchise ranking sorts these by verified total investment and explains why the take-and-bake and mobile formats cost the least. For food franchises beyond pizza, see our food franchises under $100K guide.