FDD-based franchise cost guide
Five Guys Franchise Cost: Fee, Startup Costs and ROI
A focused cost-intent page built from FranchiseIQ's FDD corpus: initial investment, franchise fee, ongoing fees, revenue signals, SBA repayment history, and what to verify before buying.
What the Five Guys franchise costs include
The disclosed initial investment range is $978K–$1.4M, including a franchise fee of $25K. Ongoing disclosed fees include a royalty rate of 6% and an advertising fund rate of 2%.
Revenue, profit, and payback signals
The franchisor does not provide enough public Item 19 data in the current corpus for a clean owner-profit estimate. Treat cost as known, but owner earnings as a diligence question.
Risk context before you buy
Risk context: 0% SBA default rate; 924 franchised units; data coverage: High.
- Ask whether the quoted investment range includes working capital, rent deposits, equipment, construction, grand opening marketing, and local pre-opening payroll.
- Compare the franchise fee and royalty burden against similar brands, not just against the advertised startup cost.
- If Item 19 data is limited, treat owner earnings as unproven until validated with current operators.
- Use SBA defaults as a repayment-history signal, not a prediction of your specific store outcome.
Next diligence step
This cost guide is intentionally narrow. For the full brand profile, use the FranchiseIQ analysis page with risk score, comparable brands, growth signals, FDD notes, and deeper SBA context.