Food & Beverage

Sonic Drive-In Franchise

Name: Sonic Drive-In Franchise
Brand: Sonic Drive-In

A drive-in and drive-thru quick-service chain known for carhop service, a large customizable drink and slush menu, and canopied outdoor stalls, franchised in free-standing, convenience-store, and urban in-line formats. The Sonic brand traces to the early 1950s; the current franchisor has offered franchises since 1974 as a predecessor entity. Both franchised and company-owned unit counts declined every year of the FDD's three-year window as the system worked through closures.

Losing locationsFounded 1953HQ: Atlanta, GA

Disclosed in the FDD's litigation section (Item 3)

Item 3 discloses a September 2017 point-of-sale malware data breach that led to two now-settled class actions: a consumer class action settled for $4,325,000 (approved 2019) and a financial-institution class action settled for up to $5,730,000 (approved 2022), both funded by Sonic's cyber liability insurance.

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 Sonic Drive-In'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

$15,000

Total to open

$1,485,200–$2,522,900

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.

Your estimated annual revenue

Defaulted to a rough food & beverage industry average, not a figure from Sonic Drive-In's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$1,735,200 – $2,772,900

Startup investment

$1,485,200–$2,522,900

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. Sonic Drive-In'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.

Estimated profit margin (% of revenue)

%≈ $80,000/year

Defaulted to a general food & beverage industry benchmark, not a figure from Sonic Drive-In'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

18.6–31.5 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Sonic Drive-In is currently losing locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.

Is Sonic Drive-In 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

Shrinking

From Item 20 of Sonic Drive-In's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.

-26

-50

-24

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	3,220	3,194	-26
2024	3,194	3,144	-50
2025	3,144	3,120	-24

Most recent year (2025): lost 24 franchised units, ending the year at 3,120 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)

Item 11: General Manager Leadership Class required before opening, a Sonic Training Program for 3 trainees included in the franchise fee, crew training support, and administration of the Sonic Brand Fund (about 66% spent on advertising/marketing, per its 2025 breakdown).

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: a real Protected Area -- a radius from 0.75 to 3 miles around the Restaurant depending on local population density -- within which Sonic won't franchise or operate another Sonic Restaurant, a stronger territory grant than several peers in this dataset.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year term for a Traditional Drive-In or Non-Drive-In location, with 2 additional 10-year renewal terms available if the franchisee meets Sonic's then-current renewal requirements.

How Sonic Drive-In compares to other Food & Beverage franchises

Across the 35 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $843,866–$2,063,296, with royalties averaging around 5.6% of gross sales (based on the 32 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).

Dave's Hot Chicken

$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

Domino's Pizza

$231,450–$743,500 · 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

Jimmy John's

$366,200–$733,500 · 6% royalty

Papa John's

$281,485–$890,267 · 5% royalty

Hungry Howie's Pizza & Subs

$238,982–$697,322 · 5.5% royalty

Jack in the Box

$1,909,500–$4,041,500 · 5% royalty

Wendy's

$1,523,957–$2,992,000 · 4% royalty

Marco's Pizza

$286,477–$811,186 · 5.5% royalty

Keep going

Sonic Drive-In and McDonald's are both food & beverage franchises; McDonald's's total investment starts about $14,700 lower than Sonic Drive-In's. McDonald's Franchise
Sonic Drive-In and Del Taco are both food & beverage franchises; Del Taco's total investment starts about $24,000 lower than Sonic Drive-In's. Del Taco Franchise

Where this came from: Sonic only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI, so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 6668, Clean FDD issued March 26, 2026, filed and effective 6/8/2026. hqLocation is Three Glenlake Pkwy NE, Atlanta, GA per Item 1, not an FTC boilerplate address. Item 5: $15,000 for a Traditional Drive-In or Non-Drive-In location ($12,500, or $5,000 for a franchisee in good standing, to reopen a previously closed location; $11,250 for a Non-Traditional or C-store location) -- the automated parser mistakenly picked up one of these reduced/non-traditional fees ($1,250) as the standard fee. Item 6: royalty is 5% of Gross Sales, plus a 0.90% Sonic Brand Fund contribution and a separate Advertising cooperative/System Marketing Fund charge of at least 3.25% of Gross Sales (1.625% minimum for Non-Traditional/C-store locations). Item 7 lists three single-unit TOTAL rows by building format; this entry uses the free-standing total ($1,485,200-$2,522,900) -- a C-store location runs $670,200-$1,412,900 and an urban in-line location runs $679,200-$1,250,900, considerably less. Item 20 Table No. 1 was hand-corrected: the automated parser had picked up a state-level sub-table (Item 20 Table No. 5, new-store projections) instead of the systemwide Table No. 1 summary used here. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-06-08. 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.