Get our free one-page cheat sheet of pizzeria cost benchmarks: food, labor, rent and delivery, with a blank for your own numbers.
A Domino’s costs about $230,000 to $740,000 to open, according to what the chain tells its own franchisees, and an independent with no franchise fees can usually come in under that. Ask how much it costs to open a pizza shop and you’ll get a range too wide to plan with. Toast puts it at $95,000 to $2,000,000. An equipment dealer says it can be as little as $25,000 for a small takeout counter. Both sell to the people they’re advising, and neither publishes the data behind the number.
The best public numbers come from franchisors, because federal rules make them disclose an estimated opening cost to every buyer. Those, plus real equipment price lists and the SBA’s loan terms, get you much closer to your own number.
Franchise disclosures are the most honest estimate in pizza
Franchise Times’ 2026 Top 400 lists Domino’s initial investment at $231,450 to $743,500. Papa Johns runs $281,485 to $890,267, Marco’s $286,727 to $807,152 and Pizza Hut $846,000 to $1,130,000. Little Caesars’ own franchise site says $376,500 to $1,769,200.
These are mostly delivery and carryout boxes with a standard kit and a franchisor’s buying power, so they’re useful as a reality check. An independent with no royalty and no required remodel package can come in under them. But if your plan says you’ll open a full kitchen for a fraction of what Domino’s tells its franchisees to budget, find out which line you left out.
The equipment line is bigger than the blog estimates
Equipment is where the estimates drift furthest from the price lists. The same dealer that quotes $25,000 for a counter shop puts a new deck oven at about $15,000 and a 60-quart mixer at about $10,000. The name-brand units cost a lot more. A Bakers Pride Y-602 double-deck gas oven lists at $28,329. A Middleby Marshall PS640E conveyor lists at $27,669 as a U.S. starting price. A Hobart 60-quart mixer is listed at $28,136.49, and a 10-by-8-foot Kolpak walk-in cooler at $11,279.
Then the hood. An Indianapolis installer prices a complete system at $1,000 to $1,500 per linear foot, or $10,000 to $15,000 for a standard 10-foot hood, plus $3,000 to $5,000 for fire suppression. Add those to the deck oven, mixer and walk-in above and four items come to about $81,000 to $88,000 at list price. That’s before a makeline, prep tables, smallwares, a POS or a single sign.
Used equipment changes the math. The same dealer puts a used deck oven at about $5,000 and a used walk-in at about $3,500. An oven you can’t get serviced isn’t a bargain, though. We wrote about how to size the one oven you need in is a second oven worth it.
The space decides most of the rest
The cheapest kitchen is one somebody else already built. Alexis Readinger of the design firm Preen told Restaurant Dive that building from scratch can cost 1.5 to two times more than converting an existing restaurant. The last survey that put numbers on it, from RestaurantOwner.com members in 2018, found a median startup cost around $375,000, with new construction around $650,000 and renovations of an existing restaurant space around $275,000. Those figures are eight years old, and costs have risen since. Several vendor blogs still quote the $375,000 without the date.
A raw retail space starts higher than you’d think. Cushman & Wakefield’s 2026 guide puts the average in-line retail fit-out at $157 per square foot nationally, from $120 in the Midwest to $217 in Northern California. That’s for stores with no hood, grease trap or walk-in, so treat it as the floor. Then read the lease before you sign it. Rent is the one cost you only get to negotiate once.
The blog estimate buys you an oven. The real number buys the hood, the walk-in and the months after the doors open before sales pay the bills.
Permits are cheap. Liquor and the first six months aren’t
Toast says licenses, permits and fees usually total around $1,000. Liquor is the exception. WebstaurantStore notes that in quota states a new license can cost up to $300,000, while elsewhere it can be as little as $125. Check your state before beer goes in the plan.
The money most first-time owners underfund isn’t on the build-out list at all. It’s the cash that pays rent and payroll while sales ramp. The equipment dealer above recommends a cushion that covers three to six months of total operating expenses. Nobody publishes a pizza-specific figure for this, so build it from your own monthly costs, and plan for the dip that comes after opening month, which we cover in what a pizza shop’s first three years look like.
If you’re borrowing, the SBA’s 7(a) program lends up to $5 million and guarantees 75% of loans above $150,000. Equipment terms usually run 10 years or less, and real estate up to 25. On loans above $350,000, the variable rate can be at most 3 points over the base rate. Since June 2025, the SBA has again required a 10% equity injection on startups, according to the law firm Phillips Lytle. Little Caesars asks franchisees for $200,000 in liquid assets, a fair marker of how much cash the big systems expect behind a single opening.
Free cheat sheet: 15 pizzeria cost benchmarks on one page
Prime cost, labor, delivery and rent, each with its source and a blank for your shop’s number. Enter your email and the download opens right away.
You’ll also get the Oven Scars newsletter. We never sell or share your address.
The limitation: there is no current, published survey of what independent pizzerias actually spent to open. Most of the ranges online are vendor estimates that cite each other, and the most-quoted survey is from 2018. The franchise figures are the franchisors’ own estimates for their formats, and equipment list prices aren’t what dealers charge after negotiation. Once you’re open, the next question is what it takes to stay open. Start with the real cost of running a pizza shop and what owners actually take home.
Common questions
How much does it cost to open a pizza shop?
Anywhere from $25,000 for a tiny takeout counter to $2 million. A better guide is what the chains tell their own franchisees: about $230,000 to $740,000 for a Domino’s. An independent with no franchise fees can usually come in under that.
How much does pizzeria equipment cost?
About $81,000 to $88,000 new for the big four: a double-deck oven, a 60-quart mixer, a walk-in and a hood with fire suppression. That’s before the makeline, smallwares or a POS. Buying used saves a lot: about $5,000 for a deck oven and $3,500 for a walk-in.
Is it cheaper to take over an old restaurant?
Usually, by a lot. One restaurant designer says building from scratch can cost up to twice as much. A 2018 survey put fixing up an old restaurant around $275,000 and building new around $650,000.
