Wendy's franchise: what it costs
Wendy's puts the cost of opening a restaurant at $1,523,957 to $2,992,000. The source is its 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD), the documents a brand must share with you before you buy.
Each part of the Wendy's franchise cost
- Full cost to open
- From $1,523,957 to $2,992,000 Item 7, 2025 FDD
- Franchise fee you pay one time at the start
- $50,000 Item 5, 2025 FDD
- Royalty, your ongoing payments to the brand
- A 4% share of gross sales Item 6, 2025 FDD
- Marketing fund, which covers shared advertising
- Advertising at 2% to 4% of gross sales Item 6, 2025 FDD
- Figures on sales or earnings
- $2,108,454 a year on average across 5,325 locations it counts, before costs Item 19, 2025 FDD
- Count of locations when 2024 ended
- Franchise owners ran 5,552 and the company ran 381 Item 20, 2025 FDD
Quality Is Our Recipe, LLC submitted the 2025 Wendy's Franchise Disclosure Document to the Minnesota Department of Commerce. These figures were taken from it. Its date is March 28, 2025, with an amendment on June 17, 2025. Each small label points to the numbered part of the FDD where that figure sits.
Sales and earnings figures from the Wendy's FDD
In Item 19, the FDD part where a brand may state what its locations sell or earn, Wendy's shares figures. Average yearly sales of $2,108,454 stand out as the main figure, drawn from 5,325 US franchised restaurants reporting a full year of sales for 2024. It is money the store takes in, not profit, because rent, wages and every other cost get paid from it.
Use this guide to read Item 19 before you rely on any figure there.
Other restaurant franchises next to Wendy's
Most restaurant franchises compared here cost less to open than Wendy's; $1.34M is where the middle one starts.
| Brand | Total cost to opentotal, lowest to highest | Upfront feeone-time fee | Royaltyongoing, usually a % of sales | Sales or earnings showndoes the brand show sales figures | Year filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subway | $263K to $630K | $15,000 | 8% | No | 2026 |
| Jimmy John's | $366K to $734K | $35,000 | 6% | Yes | 2026 |
| Firehouse Subs | $405K to $876K | $20,000 | 6% | Yes | 2026 |
| Jersey Mike's | $436K to $1.16M | $20,000 | 6.5% | Yes | 2026 |
| Arby's | $869K to $2.46M | $37,500 | 4% | Yes | 2026 |
| Five Guys | $928K to $1.38M | $25,000 | 6% | No | 2026 |
| Panera Bread | $1.34M to $4.57M | $50,000 | 5% | Yes | 2026 |
| McDonald's | $1.47M to $2.64M | $45,000 | 5% (plus rent) | Yes | 2024 |
| Sonic Drive-In | $1.49M to $2.52M | $15,000 | 5% | Yes | 2026 |
Before you buy, a brand has to hand over its Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD); the brand's latest one is where every figure comes from. After you open, you keep paying the brand a royalty: either a share of sales or a set amount; "Sales or earnings shown" says if the brand lets you know what its locations take in. A K stands for thousand, an M for million. The filing year is the year that FDD was listed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
Wendy's location count
At the end of 2024, the United States had 5,933 Wendy's locations (Item 20), and franchise owners ran 94% of them. In that same part of the FDD, you get phone numbers for owners still running stores and ones who left. Your best way to learn how these costs play out in real life is to call a few of them.
Get the Wendy's FDD read by a franchise attorney
Before you sign, one franchise attorney can go through the Wendy's FDD and franchise agreement with you.