7 Brew franchise cost in 2026: $940,500 to $2,283,500 to open, a $35,000 fee, a ten-store minimum, and a $2,550,624 median across 297 stands.
Quick answer A 7 Brew stand costs $940,500 to $2,283,500 to open per the 2026 FDD, including a $35,000 initial franchise fee. New franchisees must commit to ten stands and pay a $125,000 development fee. Median sales were $2,550,624 across 297 franchised stands in fiscal 2025.
The 2026 Brew Culture Franchise, LLC disclosure reports median annual sales of $2,550,624 across the 297 franchised 7 BREW stands open for all of fiscal 2025. Average sales were $2,646,063. The best stand did $6,366,527, the worst $836,418.
That is the highest disclosed median of any coffee brand in our database, and the sample is unusually clean: franchised stands only, broken out from the 23 company stands, full-year operators only, no top-quartile filter and no “reporting units” subset dropping weak performers.
Then you read the franchisor’s support page. “At this time, we are not accepting new franchise applications or expressions of interest.” Item 20 projects 437 new franchised stands in the coming fiscal year against just 18 signed agreements for unopened stores, so that growth comes from development commitments already sold to existing multi-unit operators. Treat this page as underwriting homework for a door that is currently shut.
| Item 7 line | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Development fee and first franchise fee | $125,000 | $125,000 |
| Building and build-out | $305,000 | $650,000 |
| Site development | $200,000 | $800,000 |
| Equipment, fixtures, POS | $210,000 | $280,000 |
| Architecture, engineering, signs | $20,000 | $100,000 |
| Deposits, permits, insurance, utilities | $10,500 | $53,500 |
| Inventory, training, marketing | $45,000 | $200,000 |
| Additional funds, 3 months | $25,000 | $75,000 |
| Total | $940,500 | $2,283,500 |
The spread is dirt, not brand. A 7 BREW stand is a 510-square-foot modular building on a lot of 8,000 to 50,000 square feet. Site development alone swings $600,000, the difference between a graded pad and a raw corner needing utilities, paving, and drainage. Freight and installation run up to $30,000 each and are stated outside the table. Annual rent is estimated at $30,000 to $150,000 on a triple-net lease. Item 7 also notes that of the 7 affiliate-owned stands sold to franchisees in 2025, 5 sold above the high end of this range, one by roughly $4.5 million. Our Item 7 walkthrough covers what these tables leave out.
The $35,000 initial fee gets quoted everywhere and on its own it misleads. Item 5 requires new franchisees to commit to a minimum of ten stands when they sign the first Franchise Agreement and the Development Rights Rider. The development fee is $35,000 for the first stand plus $10,000 for each of the nine committed, which is the $125,000 opening the Item 7 table. That $10,000 per stand is explicitly not a deposit against future fees, and stands two through ten carry their own $25,000 fee at opening. Sign the rider, pay the $125,000, fail to find sites, and the franchisor terminates and keeps all of it.
Item 5 also names the affiliate economics plainly. CTAR, Inc. builds the modular buildings, sold them at $310,000 to $400,000 during 2025, and is the designated source for the roughly $60,000 equipment package. Part of your build cost is a payment to the franchisor’s family.
See the full 7 Brew data sheet
Databases list 7 Brew’s royalty as 4.5%. Item 6 is tiered on weekly gross sales: 4.5% below $20,000, 5.5% between $20,000 and $25,000, and 7% above $25,000. Annualized, the top tier starts near $1.3 million.
The median stand does about $49,000 a week, so it pays 7%. Add the 2% brand fund and the 0.25% technology fee and a median performer sends roughly $235,900 a year to the franchisor, 9.25% of gross sales. The 4.5% rate is real, but it describes a stand under $1.04 million a year, near the disclosed floor of $836,418. That is defensible design, and a very different number than the summary tables carry.
You pay it for a long time. Item 17 runs the franchise term 15 years from opening, with two potential five-year successor terms at $10,000 each on then-current terms. Territory is thinner than the capital implies: Item 12 grants an Area of Protection of 1.5 or 2 miles by market size, then states directly that you receive no exclusive territory, because the franchisor keeps unrestricted rights to non-traditional stands inside that radius.
Franchised stands went from 24 at the start of 2023 to 578 at the end of 2025, 281 of them added in 2025. Company-owned stands held flat at 24. Item 19 states that no 7 BREW stand closed, temporarily or permanently, during fiscal 2025, and Item 20 shows zero terminations and zero non-renewals across three disclosed years.
The line worth watching is transfers: 1 in 2023, 14 in 2024, 28 in 2025. Twenty-eight owner changes against 297 stands open that January is not distress in a system with no closures. It is early churn in a brand whose franchised stands averaged 24.7 months open. Ask why those owners sold.
| Brand | Item 7 range | Disclosed revenue | Whose stands |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Brew | $940,500 to $2,283,500 | $2,550,624 median | 297 franchised, full-year 2025 |
| Dunkin’ | $142,000 to $1,832,500 | $1,297,694 median | 7,010 franchised units |
| Ziggi’s Coffee | from $315,830 | $793,853 median | 35 drive-thru franchisees |
| Scooter’s Coffee | $1,163,650 to $1,345,750 | $966,739 median | 761 participating franchised kiosks |
| Dutch Bros | not franchised | none published | company-operated |
Only one of those figures fails to compare. Ziggi’s 35-franchisee sample is too thin to rank against a 297-stand one. The other two are real medians on large samples: Dunkin’s spans 7,010 units, and Scooter’s $966,739 covers the 761 kiosks that operated a full year, though its Item 19 reaches only franchised kiosk and end-cap drive-thrus and excludes non-traditional stores, coffeehouses, and every affiliate-owned location. The Scooter’s cost breakdown works through that disclosure. 7 Brew’s median runs roughly double Dunkin’s and about 2.6 times Scooter’s, on a smaller and much younger sample. On why the sample label decides what a figure means, see Item 19 explained, and the coffee franchise industry analysis for the category’s capital tiers.
Sales are not profit, and the FDD says so. Item 19 discloses no cost of sales, no labor, no occupancy, no unit-level earnings. A stand at $2.55 million pays 9.25% off the top, services debt on a project that can top $2 million, and carries triple-net rent reaching $150,000. Only franchisees can tell you what survives that.
7 Brew’s disclosure is strong on the numbers it chose to publish and silent on the ones that decide the deal. Get the ten-store schedule in writing before any fee moves, confirm what the affiliate charges for a building in your freight zone, and call the owners behind those 28 transfers. If you are shopping the category instead, our Dutch Bros alternatives piece covers who is taking applications.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
The 2026 FDD estimates $940,500 to $2,283,500 for the first stand, including a $125,000 development fee, $305,000 to $650,000 for the modular building and build-out, and $200,000 to $800,000 in site development. Freight and installation, up to $30,000 each, sit outside that range.
Median annual sales were $2,550,624 across the 297 franchised stands open for all of fiscal 2025, on a $2,646,063 average. The 23 company stands ran higher, at a $2,763,103 median. Those are sales. The FDD discloses no cost or profit data.
The franchisor is Brew Culture Franchise, LLC, a Wyoming LLC formed February 21, 2021 and based in Springdale, Arkansas. Its direct parent is Brew Culture, LLC and its indirect parent is Blondie Holdings, LLC. Item 1 also names investment funds managed by Blackstone affiliates.
Not to new applicants. The company's support page states it is not accepting new franchise applications or expressions of interest. Item 20 still projects 437 new franchised stands next fiscal year, which existing development-agreement holders are contracted to build.
Neither right now. Dutch Bros stopped selling franchises in 2017 and has been buying franchised shops back since. 7 Brew has franchises in the field but a closed application window. Scooter's Coffee is the drive-thru coffee brand currently taking new franchisees.
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