Best coffee franchises ranked on real Item 19 data: 7 Brew $2,550,624 on 297 stands, Dunkin $1,297,694 on 7,010 units, Scooter's $966,739 on 761.
Quick answer 7 Brew posts the highest disclosed median in coffee at $2,550,624 across 297 franchised stands, followed by Dunkin' at $1,297,694 across 7,010 restaurants and Scooter's at $966,739 across 761 kiosks. Dunkin's 7,010-unit sample is the only disclosure in the category large enough to work as a real benchmark.
7 Brew’s 2026 FDD reports a median of $2,550,624 across 297 franchised stands. Dunkin’s reports $1,297,694 across 7,010 franchised restaurants. Both figures are real, both sit in Item 19, and reading them straight across is a mistake: one describes a chain whose measured stores had been open an average of 24.7 months, the other describes a system whose measured restaurants have been running for an average of 17 years.
Seven coffee brands in our data publish a median. Three of those medians came from stores the franchisor or its affiliate owns. Starbucks is absent from the table because it does not franchise in North America, which we explain in is Starbucks a franchise. Here is the whole category with the sample definition attached to every number, because the definition is doing most of the work.
| Brand | Item 7, single unit | Initial fee | Franchised units | Item 19 median | Sample | Units measured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Brew | $940,500 to $2,283,500 | $35,000 | 578 | $2,550,624 | 297 | franchised stands |
| Peet’s Coffee | $1,035,000 to $1,697,000 | $35,000 | 0 | $1,428,953 | 196 | affiliate-owned stores |
| Dunkin’ | $532,400 to $1,832,500 (freestanding) | $40,000 to $90,000 | 8,744 | $1,297,694 | 7,010 | franchised restaurants |
| Gregory’s Coffee | $459,150 to $946,000 | $35,000 | 0 | $1,016,476 | 32 | company-owned in-line cafes |
| Scooter’s Coffee | $1,163,650 to $1,345,750 | $40,000 | 881 | $966,739 | 761 | franchised kiosk drive-thrus |
| Ziggi’s Coffee | $586,830 to $1,759,855 (drive-thru) | $40,000 | 107 | $793,853 | 55 | franchised drive-thrus |
| Caribou Coffee | $281,100 to $1,515,000 | $30,000 | 144 | see below | 12 | traditional franchised locations |
Across the four brands that report franchisee results, the spread runs 3.2x, from $2,550,624 down to $793,853. That is a wider range than most buyers expect inside a single product category, and almost none of it is explained by coffee quality.
The 297 franchised stands in 7 Brew’s fiscal 2025 disclosure averaged $2,646,063 and had a median of $2,550,624. The best one did $6,366,527. The worst did $836,418. Those stands sit in 510-square-foot modular buildings on lots of 8,000 to 50,000 square feet, and the longest-running one in the sample had been open 49 months.
That last detail is the whole risk. There is no mature 7 Brew cohort yet, so the median tells you what a two-year-old stand does in a market the brand hand-picked during a land grab. It cannot tell you what year seven looks like, because year seven does not exist.
The entry terms are unusual too. Item 7 runs $940,500 to $2,283,500 per stand and excludes land purchase, with site development alone running $200,000 to $800,000 and the high end tied to Florida builds. A franchisee new to the system must commit to ten stores at signing and pay a $125,000 development fee, which is the $35,000 first-store fee plus $10,000 for each additional store committed. Royalty is 4.5%, the lowest of any brand here. We break the full capital stack down in our 7 Brew franchise cost analysis.
One line in Item 7 deserves a second read: of the seven affiliate-owned stores sold to franchisees during 2025, five closed above the high end of the estimated investment range, and the largest exceeded it by roughly $4.5 million.
Nothing else in the category is close. Dunkin’ discloses annual unit volumes for 7,010 franchised restaurants: median $1,297,694, average $1,372,069, high $6,007,706, low $65,354. The quartile breaks land at $952,914 and $1,703,007, so half the system operates in that band. Bottom-quartile median is $753,308. Top-quartile median is $2,041,189.
A sample that size does something no other disclosure in the category can do, which is give your specific format its own number. Freestanding pad or building restaurants, 3,169 of them, post a $1,522,154 median. Traditional non-freestanding sites, 2,423 of them, post $1,175,390. Gas and convenience locations run $1,088,513 across 900 units, airports $1,551,836 across 102, and other non-traditional sites $747,043 across 416. You know roughly where your site type sits before you sign.
The trade-off is age and saturation. Those restaurants average 17 years old, 4,723 of them have drive-thru windows and 2,170 have none. Our Dunkin’ and Scooter’s comparison covers how the two systems behave at unit level.
Scooter’s Item 19 covers 761 participating kiosk stores out of the 768 franchised kiosks open at the end of 2025: median $966,739, average $999,869, low $337,233, high $2,458,874. The five-year table in the same document shows median gross sales moving from $776,635 in 2021 to $966,739 in 2025, a 24.5% climb over four years that you can read year by year rather than trust.
The cost side is the quiet advantage. Item 7 runs $1,163,650 to $1,345,750, a spread of $182,100. Compare that to the $1.34 million gap between 7 Brew’s low and high. A tight band means the franchisor has built the same box enough times to price it, and it makes your lender’s job easier.
Read the exclusions before you get comfortable. This Item 19 covers franchised kiosk and end-cap drive-thrus only. Coffeehouse and non-traditional stores are left out because Scooter’s is not actively marketing them, and every affiliate-owned store is excluded too. Our Dutch Bros and Scooter’s breakdown explains why the obvious competitor is not purchasable at all, and you can filter the whole category on our food and beverage franchise list.
Caribou’s 2026 FDD discloses gross sales for 12 traditional franchised locations that operated the full 2025 fiscal year. Twelve. That sample cannot be ranked against a 7,010-unit disclosure and should not be averaged into anything. The $1,086,055 figure that circulates with the brand comes from another table in the prior year’s document: the fiscal 2024 median net sales of 110 company-owned drive-thru Chalet coffeehouses. Wrong owner, wrong year, wrong format. Caribou also runs 350 company-owned locations against 144 franchised ones, so the company’s own stores are the business.
Peet’s is cleaner about it and still needs reading carefully. The brand had zero franchised units at its 2026 filing. Its $1,428,953 median describes 196 affiliate-owned reporting locations, 166 of which are in California, and only five of which have a drive-thru. Peet’s is franchising drive-thru stores. Deals are area development only, with a $17,500 per-store development fee and an estimated $175,000 to $262,500 due at signing for a ten to fifteen store schedule.
Gregory’s Coffee organized its franchising entity in December 2025 and shows zeros across all three years of franchised outlets in Item 20. The $1,016,476 belongs to 32 company-owned in-line cafes. Across all 47 reporting locations the median drops to $822,667, and the 14 mall locations sit at $461,006. Three numbers, one brand, and the flattering one is what gets quoted.
Ziggi’s is useful because it discloses both formats in one document. The 55 franchised drive-thru shops posted a $793,853 median. The 35 cafe-with-drive-thru shops posted $904,212, about 14% higher. Then look at what each one costs: $586,830 to $1,759,855 for the first, $655,336 to $2,093,361 for the second. You pay roughly $334,000 more at the top end for 14% more revenue, plus a dining room to staff and clean.
That math is why the category keeps shrinking its footprint. 7 Brew’s building is 510 square feet with no seating. Scooter’s leaves its coffeehouse format out of Item 19 because it is not selling it. Our industry overview covers where the format shift is heading, and we ran the build-your-own alternative in franchise versus independent.
Dunkin’ gets quoted as $142,000 to $1,832,500. Those endpoints belong to two unrelated businesses filed in separate Item 7 tables. The $142,000 to $862,500 range is a non-traditional satellite: a counter inside a stadium, an airport, or a host retailer. Freestanding is $532,400 to $1,832,500, shopping center storefront is $443,000 to $1,333,500, gas and convenience is $216,400 to $1,065,500. The cheap entry buys the low revenue, and Dunkin’s own tables prove it, with non-traditional sites outside gas and airport venues at a $747,043 median against $1,522,154 for freestanding buildings.
Apply the same test everywhere. 7 Brew’s table excludes land purchase and estimates annual rent at $30,000 to $150,000. Ziggi’s cheapest number, $315,830, is a mobile unit with no Item 19 of its own. A low end you cannot actually build in your market is a marketing figure, not a budget.
If the highest disclosed revenue is what you want, 7 Brew leads and asks for ten stores and a young track record in return. If you want a number you can defend to a lender, Dunkin’s 7,010-unit disclosure is the only one in coffee that survives scrutiny, and its site-type tables let you argue your specific location. Scooter’s sits between them with the narrowest capital range. Put any two side by side on our comparison tool with the sample definitions visible, and the ranking usually changes.
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best coffee franchisescoffee franchise costdrive-thru coffee franchiseItem 197 BrewScooter's CoffeeDunkin
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.
No brand in this category discloses franchisee profit, so the honest answer is revenue only. 7 Brew reports the highest median at $2,550,624 across 297 franchised stands. Caribou is the only one publishing cash flow percentages by sales tier, and it publishes them for 116 company-owned drive-thru locations rather than franchised ones.
Between roughly $142,000 and $2.28 million, depending on format. A Dunkin' counter inside a gas station or airport runs $142,000 to $862,500, while a freestanding Dunkin' is $532,400 to $1,832,500. Scooter's quotes $1,163,650 to $1,345,750 for a kiosk drive-thru, and 7 Brew quotes $940,500 to $2,283,500 per stand with land purchase excluded from the table.
They are priced for different buyers. 7 Brew discloses 2.6x the median revenue at a 4.5% royalty, but new franchisees must commit to developing ten stores and pay a $125,000 development fee up front. Scooter's takes 6% and sells single units, with an Item 7 spread of only $182,100 between low and high.
No. Dutch Bros stopped selling franchises in 2017 and grows through company-owned shops, with operator roles filled from inside. That is why the brand has no FDD in circulation and no Item 19 to compare. Buyers who want the drive-thru specialty model look at 7 Brew, Scooter's, or Ziggi's instead.
Dunkin's non-traditional format starts at $142,000 and Caribou's Item 7 starts at $281,100, with Ziggi's mobile unit at $315,830 to $464,355. The catch is that each cheap format either has no earnings disclosure of its own or posts well below the brand headline. Dunkin's non-traditional sites outside gas and airport venues median $747,043 against $1,522,154 for freestanding buildings.
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