Food & Beverage
Wingstop Franchise
A wing-focused quick-service franchise built around a small footprint and a menu of classic and boneless wings in a wide range of flavors, with a sales mix skewed heavily toward off-premise and digital orders. The first Wingstop Restaurant opened in July 1994, and predecessor Wingstop Restaurants Inc. began offering franchises in 1997; the system added a net of more than 850 franchised Restaurants across the three years shown here, with growth accelerating each year through 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 Wingstop'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
$25,000
Total to open
$310,400–$1,048,500
Ongoing royalty
6% 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 Wingstop's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.
Total cost of ownership over 5 years
$610,400 – $1,348,500
Startup investment
$310,400–$1,048,500
Royalty per year (6%)
$60,000
Total royalty, 5yr
$300,000
When would you break even?
Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Wingstop'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 Wingstop'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
3.9–13.1 years
Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Wingstop 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 Wingstop 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 Wingstop's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.
| Year | Franchised units, start | Franchised units, end | Net change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 1,678 | 1,877 | +199 |
| 2024 | 1,877 | 2,154 | +277 |
| 2025 | 2,154 | 2,529 | +375 |
Most recent year (2025): gained 375 franchised units, ending the year at 2,529 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 is delivered through a Corporate Training Class combining online, classroom, and on-the-job instruction at Wingstop's training facility and designated training restaurants, covering Wingstop culture, the Operations Manual, food preparation and storage, and food safety/HACCP, among other subjects. Franchisees also get ongoing access to an electronic Operations Manual and required supplier/vendor lists.
Territory protection (Item 12)
The Development Agreement defines a "Development Area" sized to the population and demographics of the requested location, and Wingstop won't grant another Development Agreement inside it while a franchisee is in compliance. The Development Area explicitly excludes all Non-Traditional Venues (hospitals, airports, schools, stadiums, casinos, and similar) located within it, so franchisees do not receive an exclusive territory and may face Wingstop-authorized competition at those venues.
Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)
The Franchise Agreement runs 10 years from the Restaurant's scheduled or actual opening date, whichever is earlier. Compliant franchisees can renew for 2 additional 10-year terms under the current agreement form; franchisees who acquired their franchise before January 2022 and agreed to certain amended provisions may have a right to a third 10-year renewal term.
How Wingstop 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
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
Keep going
- Wingstop and Ziggi's Coffee are both food & beverage franchises; Wingstop's total investment starts about $5,430 lower than Ziggi's Coffee's. Ziggi's Coffee Franchise
- Wingstop and Tropical Smoothie Cafe are both food & beverage franchises; Tropical Smoothie Cafe's total investment starts about $10,400 lower than Wingstop's. Tropical Smoothie Cafe Franchise
Where this came from: Minnesota CARDS, FDD issued April 21, 2026 (MN File No. 10372, filed 4/21/2026, effective in Minnesota 7/2/2026) -- Wingstop only files an exemption notice, not a full FDD, with California DFPI, so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's franchise registry instead. Item 5: $25,000 franchise fee per Restaurant, plus a separate $25,000 development fee per Restaurant committed under the Development Agreement. Item 6: 6% royalty on Gross Sales, plus an Ad Fund contribution currently 5.5% of Gross Sales (adjustable each year between 5% and 5.5%). Item 7: $310,400-$1,048,500 total initial investment (TOTALS row, excluding real estate purchase and lease costs). Item 20 Table 1 franchised outlets; company-owned outlets grew from 43 to 57 over the same three years. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-07-02. 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.