QSR franchise startup costs run $125K to $2.5M+. Real Item 7 data from 607 food FDDs: segment averages, cheapest entries, and what the $1M+ tier buys.
Quick answerQSR franchise startup costs run from about $125,000 for a non-traditional pizza unit to over $2.5 million for a freestanding drive-thru build. The median Item 7 range across 607 food and beverage FDDs is $305,500 to $796,800 as of July 2026, with franchise fees typically $25,000 to $50,000.
The median quick-service restaurant investment runs $305,500 to $796,800, based on the 607 food and beverage brands with complete Item 7 data among the 2,000+ FDDs VetMyFranchise has analyzed, as of July 2026. That median hides a spread of more than 20x between the cheapest non-traditional unit and the most expensive freestanding build.
This guide scopes strictly to QSR and fast-casual restaurants. If you want startup costs across every franchise industry, from home services to fitness, start with our complete guide to how much it costs to open a franchise and come back here for the restaurant-specific numbers.
Here is what the segment-level data shows:
| QSR Segment | Brands (n) | Avg. Minimum Investment | Avg. Maximum Investment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken & wings | 14 | $1,460,000 | $3,230,000 |
| Burger | 6 | $1,010,000 | $1,900,000 |
| Pizza | 28 | $470,000 | $1,280,000 |
| Coffee & cafe | 26 | $338,000 | $893,000 |
Figures are segment averages (not medians) from FDD Item 7 data as of July 2026. Small sample sizes, especially burger (n=6), skew toward large national brands. Verify current terms in each brand’s FDD.
Two things stand out. Chicken is the most capital-intensive segment because most of the large bone-in chicken brands build freestanding drive-thru restaurants: Zaxby’s alone discloses $1,460,000 to $3,810,500 per its 2026 FDD. And coffee sits at the affordable end because so many cafe concepts fit into small inline retail spaces without commercial hood systems.
Averages are a starting point. Actual brands are where the decision gets made. Here are seven QSR and fast-casual franchises with clean Item 7 data, pulled from their current FDDs:
| Franchise | Segment | Investment Range | Franchise Fee | Royalty | Franchised Units | FDD Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Papa John’s | Pizza | $125,000 – $853,365 | $5,000 | 5–6% | 2,752 | 2026 |
| Qdoba | Fast-casual Mexican | $234,500 – $1,294,000 | $40,000 | 5–6% | 652 | 2025 |
| Wingstop | Chicken wings | $310,400 – $1,013,500 | $25,000 | 6% | 2,154 | 2026 |
| Jimmy John’s | Sandwiches | $366,200 – $728,200 | $35,000 | 6% | 2,737 | 2026 |
| Crumbl | Dessert | $848,566 – $1,472,533 | $50,000 | 8% | 1,101 | 2026 |
| Five Guys | Burgers | $977,850 – $1,375,750 | $25,000 | 6% | 1,558 | 2025 |
| Dairy Queen | Treats/QSR | $1,510,100 – $2,550,100 | $45,000 | 4% | 1,985 | 2026 |
Source: Data extracted from 2025-2026 Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with state regulators. Figures may have changed since filing. Verify current terms directly with the franchisor.
Three variables drive most of the spread:
Real estate format. A freestanding pad with a drive-thru means site work, a building, and a parking lot. An inline strip-center space means a vanilla shell and a tenant improvement allowance. Dairy Queen’s $1.5M floor versus Jimmy John’s $366,200 floor is mostly this difference.
Kitchen complexity. Fryers, grills, and hood systems are expensive to buy and expensive to ventilate. Five Guys needs a full griddle-and-fryer line; a Crumbl bakery needs ovens and mixers but no fryers; a sandwich concept needs slicers and cold tables. Every step down in kitchen complexity cuts both equipment cost and required square footage.
Range width within a single brand. Wingstop’s own range spans $310,400 to $1,013,500 in the same FDD. The low end assumes a modest inline conversion in an existing second-generation restaurant space. The high end assumes ground-up construction. When you see a wide range, ask the franchisor which end describes the deals actually being signed in your market.
Note how Wingstop sits far below its segment’s $1.46M average minimum. The chicken average is pulled up by big freestanding formats; a wing concept designed around takeout and delivery needs a fraction of the footprint.
The initial franchise fee gets the headlines, but it is usually the smallest major line in Item 7. Five Guys charges $25,000 against a minimum investment of $977,850, about 2.6% of the total. Crumbl’s $50,000 fee is under 6% of its minimum. Across the seven brands above, fees cluster between $25,000 and $50,000 regardless of how expensive the total build is. Papa John’s $5,000 fee is a deliberate development incentive, not a signal of a cheap project.
The real money goes to three places:
Ongoing fees deserve the same scrutiny as the upfront ones. Wingstop stacks a 6% royalty on top of a 5.5% ad fund contribution, so 11.5% of gross sales leaves the register before rent or labor. Dairy Queen runs 4% royalty plus a 5% to 6% ad contribution. Two brands with similar startup costs can have very different unit economics once the fee stack is applied.
To see where a specific brand’s investment falls against the entire market, our franchise pricing index ranks investment ranges across every industry we track.
“Real” matters here. Plenty of listicles promise food franchises under $50K; almost none of those are restaurants with a lease and a kitchen. Among established QSR brands, the genuine low end looks like this:
A cheap minimum buys a specific kind of restaurant: a conversion of existing space, no drive-thru, and often a non-traditional venue such as a food court, convenience store, or campus location. Non-traditional units usually carry different fee schedules and different revenue profiles, so quoting the low end of Item 7 next to the Item 19 figures from traditional stores is an apples-to-oranges error.
Taco Bell is the classic illustration. Its express and in-line formats start far below what a traditional freestanding unit costs, but the freestanding builds that generate the brand’s famous volumes run into the millions. Our Taco Bell franchise cost breakdown separates the two formats in detail.
Three of the seven brands in the table above have Item 7 floors of roughly $850,000 or more. What justifies it:
Five Guys ($977,850 to $1,375,750 per the 2025 FDD) builds a high-throughput burger line with premium finishes, and it expects multi-unit commitment from most buyers. The full Five Guys cost breakdown covers the area development math. If you only want one restaurant, Five Guys may not be the right fit.
Crumbl ($848,566 to $1,472,533 per the 2026 FDD) charges the highest franchise fee ($50,000) and royalty (8%) in our table. Its 2026 Item 19 discloses median sales of $1,093,071 across 776 bakeries. See our Crumbl franchise cost guide for the cohort trend behind that median, which matters more than the headline number.
Dairy Queen ($1,510,100 to $2,550,100 per the 2026 FDD) is the full freestanding format: land work, building, drive-thru, and a 1,985-unit franchised system behind it. Its Item 19 reports median sales of $1,413,799 across a 286-restaurant sample.
The revenue side is why buyers accept these numbers. Wingstop’s 2026 FDD reports median sales of $1,890,866 across 2,116 franchised restaurants, one of the largest Item 19 samples in QSR, against a minimum investment of $310,400. Qdoba’s 2025 FDD shows $1,596,761 for the middle restaurant in its 464-unit sample; Jimmy John’s discloses $955,639. A higher build cost only makes sense when the disclosed sales support it; compute the ratio of typical revenue to midpoint investment for every brand on your shortlist. Full context on the wing economics is in our Wingstop franchise cost guide.
Item 7 is a table of estimates, and the FTC Franchise Rule (16 CFR Part 436) only requires the franchisor to disclose its reasonable estimate of the initial phase. Five places where reality routinely exceeds the table:
A structured read beats a gut feel. When you have two candidate FDDs side by side:
The FTC’s Consumer’s Guide to Buying a Franchise is worth a read before your first franchisor call. And if you want to see what a rigorous single-brand teardown looks like, our $49 FDD analysis example walks through a real report section by section, from Item 7 math to the questions worth asking existing franchisees.
Most QSR franchises cost between roughly $305,500 and $796,800 to open, the median Item 7 range across 607 food and beverage FDDs as of July 2026. Non-traditional units start near $125,000 (Papa John's 2026 FDD minimum), while freestanding drive-thru builds like Dairy Queen run $1,510,100 to $2,550,100 per the 2026 FDD.
Among major brands, Papa John's discloses the lowest entry point in our data at $125,000 minimum with a $5,000 franchise fee per its 2026 FDD. Qdoba starts at $234,500 (2025 FDD) and Wingstop at $310,400 (2026 FDD). Low minimums usually assume a conversion, inline, or non-traditional format rather than a freestanding store with a drive-thru.
It can be. Wingstop's 2026 FDD reports median franchised-restaurant sales of $1,890,866, Qdoba's 2025 FDD a median of $1,596,761, and Crumbl's 2026 FDD a median of $1,093,071. Revenue is not profit, though. After 8% to 12% in combined royalty and ad fees plus rent, labor, and food costs, margins depend heavily on volume. Verify the Item 19 basis (sample size, time period, median vs average) before you underwrite.
Item 7 is the FDD's estimated initial investment table, required by the FTC Franchise Rule. It itemizes the franchise fee, build-out or leasehold improvements, equipment, signage, opening inventory, deposits, and licenses, plus an "additional funds" line that typically covers only about three months of operating expenses. Real estate purchase costs are often excluded or listed as "varies."
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