Food & Beverage
Domino's Pizza Franchise
A pizza delivery and carryout quick-service chain built on a comparatively low upfront cost and a mature, densely-franchised U.S. footprint. Founded by Thomas S. Monaghan in 1963; Domino's Pizza Franchising LLC became the U.S. franchisor of record after a 2007 securitization financing transaction, and Domino's Pizza, Inc. has been publicly traded since a 2004 IPO. Franchised Traditional outlet count grew every year shown, accelerating from +162 in 2023 to +197 in 2025, while company-owned Traditional outlets shrank from 292 to 262 in 2025.
Every franchisor has to file a document called an FDD before they can legally sell you a franchise. Buried in it are the two things a sales rep won't volunteer: what you'll actually spend to open, and whether existing locations are opening or closing. That's what's below, pulled straight from Domino's Pizza's own filing.
What it costs to open
From the filing's investment breakdown -- not a "starting at" number a sales rep quoted you.
Franchise fee
$10,000
Total to open
$231,450–$743,500
Ongoing royalty
5.5% of gross sales
What you'd actually spend, over time
The upfront cost is only part of it. Plug in what you expect a location to bring in, and see the real total once royalties over a few years are added on top.
Defaulted to a rough food & beverage industry average, not a figure from Domino's Pizza's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$506,450 – $1,018,500
Startup investment
$231,450–$743,500
Royalty per year (5.5%)
$55,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$275,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Domino's Pizza's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical food & beverage profit margin (~8%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.
Defaulted to a general food & beverage industry benchmark, not a figure from Domino's Pizza's own filing -- this is a starting point to adjust, not a promise about what franchisees actually make.
At that profit, you'd break even in about
2.9–9.3 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Domino's Pizza is opening more locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.
Is Domino's Pizza actually growing?
Franchisors have to report, every year, how many locations opened, closed, or changed hands. Most franchise sites never show you this. Here it is:
Locations opened vs. closed, by year
GrowingFrom Item 20 of Domino's Pizza's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 6,438 | 6,600 | +162 |
| 2024 | 6,600 | 6,751 | +151 |
| 2025 | 6,751 | 6,948 | +197 |
Most recent year (2025): gained 197 franchised units, ending the year at 6,948 total.
What you're actually signing up for
The cost and growth numbers above are only part of the picture. These three FDD items are the ones a prospective franchisee tends to weigh most heavily once they're past the sticker price.
Training & ongoing support (Item 11)
Domino's requires purchase of the proprietary PULSE point-of-sale system ($4,200 initial license fee) plus ongoing third-party PULSE vendor fees that vary and are invoiced separately; support and certain franchisee services are delivered under a servicing agreement with parent Domino's Pizza LLC (DPL), though DPF remains the responsible franchisor.
Territory protection (Item 12)
You will not receive an exclusive territory under the Traditional Store Franchise Agreement -- Domino's states this explicitly and reserves the right to develop, franchise, or operate other Domino's Stores nearby, including through other distribution channels.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
Domino's requires a Reservation Fee ($25,000) under its Development Agreement if a franchisee misses lease-execution or construction-start deadlines for a committed store, or for each committed store never opened -- a real financial consequence for under-delivering on a development commitment, on top of the standard Franchise Agreement's own renewal and termination terms.
How Domino's Pizza compares to other Food & Beverage franchises
Across the 28 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $837,269–$2,125,953, with royalties averaging around 5.7% of gross sales (based on the 25 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).
$617,800–$2,170,000 · 6% royalty
Slim Chickens$1,188,900–$4,944,000 · 5% royalty
Ziggi's Coffee$315,830–$2,093,361 · 6% royalty
Crumbl$848,566–$1,472,533 · 8% royalty
Little Caesars$376,500–$1,769,200 · 6% royalty
Jamba$480,850–$941,300 · 6% royalty
Tropical Smoothie Cafe$300,000–$720,500 · 6% royalty
Playa Bowls$188,675–$636,458 · 6% royalty
Kona Ice$114,730–$228,601 · non-%-of-revenue royalty
Firehouse Subs$166,671–$950,351 · 6% royalty
Wingstop$310,400–$1,048,500 · 6% royalty
Jersey Mike's Subs$436,176–$1,162,228 · 6.5% royalty
Dunkin'$532,400–$1,832,500 · 5.9% royalty
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen$1,222,045–$3,923,245 · 5% royalty
Del Taco$1,461,200–$3,313,500 · 5% royalty
Blaze Pizza$757,000–$1,297,100 · 5% royalty
Church's Texas Chicken$1,202,400–$1,886,300 · 5% royalty
MOD Pizza$924,732–$1,220,633 · 5% royalty
Twin Peaks$2,959,000–$5,734,000 · 5% royalty
McDonald's$1,470,500–$2,642,000 · 5% royalty
Subway$263,000–$630,000 · 8% royalty
Taco Bell$1,859,750–$4,312,200 · 5.5% royalty
KFC$2,107,575–$4,155,000 · 5% royalty
Burger King$2,039,200–$4,730,600 · 4.5% royalty
Chick-fil-A$317,521–$3,463,155 · non-%-of-revenue royalty
Penn Station$507,500–$858,750 · non-%-of-revenue royalty
Nekter Juice Bar$243,155–$647,160 · 6% royalty
Keep going
- Domino's Pizza and Nekter Juice Bar are both food & beverage franchises; Domino's Pizza's total investment starts about $11,705 lower than Nekter Juice Bar's. Nekter Juice Bar Franchise
- Domino's Pizza and Subway are both food & beverage franchises; Domino's Pizza's total investment starts about $31,550 lower than Subway's. Subway Franchise
Where this came from: Domino's only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice, not a full FDD, with California DFPI, so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: Clean FDD issued April 1, 2026 (MN File No. 421, filed 7/29/2026, effective in Minnesota 8/6/2026), Traditional Store FDD. Item 5: unusually low initial fee versus this dataset's other big chains -- a $0-$10,000 "Initial Fee" (application-processing fee, not a traditional franchise fee) that varies by whether you're building new, refranchising a closed store, or purchasing an existing one ($1,500 transfer fee). Item 6: 5.5% Royalty Fee plus a 4% Advertising Fund contribution, both on weekly Royalty Sales; a 1%-4% local Advertising Cooperative fee may also apply. Item 7: $231,450-$743,500 TOTAL for a Traditional Store (a separate, lower Non-Traditional Store range also appears in the FDD). Item 20 Table No. 1 (Traditional) franchised-outlet rows above; company-owned Traditional outlets held near-flat at 286-292 in 2023-2024 before dropping to 262 in 2025. franchiseFee here is recorded as $10,000, the top of the disclosed Item 5 range, since Domino's own Item 5 text gives a $0-$10,000 range rather than one flat fee. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-08-06. None of this is investment advice -- get the franchisor's current FDD and talk to a real attorney or accountant before you sign anything.
If you see a different unit count elsewhere: franchisors only have to refile their FDD annually, so the numbers here can run 6–18 months behind a franchisor's own real-time marketing claims -- which often aren't independently verified, and sometimes count signed-but-not-yet-open locations. A gap isn't necessarily an error on either side; it's two different snapshots in time from two different sources.