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Papa John's vs Donatos Pizza — which franchise is the better buy?

Side by side from the public FDDs — no franchisor spin.

	Papa John's	Donatos Pizza
Disclosure honesty	C	C
Investment from	$281,485	$541,818
Total fees	11%	5%
Outlets	3,294	176
Lawsuits	3	1

Papa John's: what their numbers say

Sales data for 2,837 standard restaurants (2025): median $1.07M system-wide, average $1.12M. Top 25% averaged $1.64M. No Non-Traditional/Small-Town data provided.

Donatos Pizza: what their numbers say

Discloses avg franchisee Net Sales (~$1.04M) and EBITDA% by sales tier. Lowest tier averages -0.5% EBITDA. Excludes owner compensation, depreciation, debt service, and 14 of 125 franchisees. Columbus market bias noted.

Get the real owner take-home for either — $149

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