Food & Beverage
MOD Pizza Franchise
A fast-casual, individual-size artisan pizza concept where customers build their own pie for a flat price, plus salads and shakes, assembled and baked in under five minutes. The concept launched in February 2008; the franchising entity was formed in 2013 and began offering franchises that year, and Elite Pizza Holdings acquired the company's parent in July 2024. Both franchised and company-owned unit counts fell in 2024, with franchised locations recovering slightly in 2025 while company-owned locations kept shrinking.
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 MOD 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
$30,000
Total to open
$924,732–$1,220,633
Ongoing royalty
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 MOD Pizza's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$1,174,732 – $1,470,633
Startup investment
$924,732–$1,220,633
Royalty per year (5%)
$50,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$250,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. MOD 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 MOD 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
11.6–15.3 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: MOD 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 MOD 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 MOD Pizza's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 86 | 87 | +1 |
| 2024 | 87 | 76 | -11 |
| 2025 | 76 | 81 | +5 |
Most recent year (2025): gained 5 franchised units, ending the year at 81 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)
Initial training requires the MOD Operator plus two Management Staff to complete a minimum four-week training program before opening. Ongoing marketing support draws on the 2% Marketing Fund (cap 3%) plus a separate Local Marketing requirement of at least 2% of weekly revenue, which franchisees can direct into a market-level Local Marketing Association co-op.
Territory protection (Item 12)
MOD Pizza grants a real Protected Area -- typically a one-to-two-mile radius sized by local population -- that isn't contingent on hitting any sales or performance threshold, unlike some peers in this dataset. You can't relocate within it without written approval, and the Franchise Agreement grants no right of first refusal on additional MOD Pizza locations inside or next to your Protected Area.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
10-year initial term with a genuine renewal right for a successor term equal to the then-current term length offered to new franchisees (notice due 180-365 days ahead of expiration). The Franchise Agreement is governed by Washington law, with mandatory non-binding mediation in Washington state required before any arbitration or litigation -- a real hurdle for a franchisee based elsewhere.
How MOD Pizza compares to other Food & Beverage franchises
Across the 19 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $758,099–$1,965,490, with royalties averaging around 5.7% of gross sales (based on the 18 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
Twin Peaks$2,959,000–$5,734,000 · 5% royalty
Keep going
- MOD Pizza and Crumbl are both food & beverage franchises; Crumbl's total investment starts about $76,166 lower than MOD Pizza's. Crumbl Franchise
- MOD Pizza and Blaze Pizza are both food & beverage franchises; Blaze Pizza's total investment starts about $167,732 lower than MOD Pizza's. Blaze Pizza Franchise
Where this came from: California DFPI Registration Application (Initial/Late Renewal), App ID APP00005335, filed 4/23/2026, effective 6/16/2026. FDD issued April 20, 2026 ("2026 MOD Pizza Multi-State FDD"). Item 5: $30,000 initial franchise fee for a single Restaurant under an individual Franchise Agreement. Item 6: Continuing Fee (royalty) is 5% of weekly Revenues -- not disclosed in the extraction draft's Item 6 excerpt, verified directly in the FDD text; Marketing Fees are 2% of weekly Revenues, increasable up to 3% on 90 days' notice, plus a separate Local Marketing requirement of up to 2%. Item 7: $924,732-$1,220,633 total investment for a single Restaurant under an individual Franchise Agreement; Item 7 also discloses $935,232-$1,313,133 for a Restaurant developed under an Area Development Agreement (2-10 restaurants), which this entry excludes. Item 20 Table 1 franchised and company-owned outlets for the U.S. only (excludes 2 franchised restaurants in British Columbia, Canada); the draft extraction only captured 2025 unit data, corrected here to the full 2023-2025 window. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-04-23. 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.