Food & Beverage · registry year 2024 · HQ MO
Panera Bread Franchise
A JAB Holding Co brand operating in the food & beverage sector, franchising since 1993. According to the 2024 FDD filing for Panera Bread, this is an editorial comparison record; it does not reproduce the brand's current FDD.
- $900K – $3.7M
- Initial investment · Higher entry cost
- 5.0%
- Royalty rate · Mid-range royalty
- 2,137
- Total locations · Large network
- $2.5M
- Avg unit revenue · Above-average unit revenue
FDD outlay schedule
Registry panera-bread Panera Bread
Panera Bread needs $900K–$3.7M to open and charges a 5.0% royalty - an entry cost above the typical food & beverage franchise.
- LO $900K
- HI $3.7M
- FEE $35K
- ROY 5.0%
- UNT 2,137
- I19 Disclosed
- INV# #36/223
- UNT# #53/223
Same-sector Item 7 peers
Nearest Item 7 peer: Del Taco ($839K)
Same-sector Item 7 neighbourhood for Panera Bread (registry year 2024). Listed lows only - not a profit, cost-of-living, or suitability claim. Verify the current FDD before relying on these figures. How we place brands →
Franchise Opportunity Health Score
How healthy and transparent Panera Bread's franchise system looks, from 2 of 2 tracked dimensions.
- Network momentum 0.5% net unit growth (YoY) 26/100 · F
- Financial disclosure Item 19 disclosed 100/100 · A
Benchmarked against the 223-brand tracked corpus (p10-p90 range per dimension); a higher score means a growing unit count and a disclosed Item 19. See how we place brands.
Where Panera Bread's investment ranks nationally
Panera Bread's listed Item 7 low of $900K against every one of the 218 tracked franchise brands with a disclosed initial investment. Listed figures only, verify in the current FDD before relying on them.
Panera Bread vs all tracked franchise brands by listed investment
Initial investment low (FDD Item 7), PlainFranchise brand corpus
$900,000 Higher than most higher than 83% of 218 franchise brands
Franchise brands, banded by listed Item 7 low
Each bar is a $0.001K-wide band; taller bars hold more franchise brands. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source PlainFranchise editorial comparison registry · 2024-12-31
Investment Overview
- Franchise Fee
- $35K
- Ad Fund Rate
- 2.0%
Revenue Data (Item 19)
- Average Revenue
- $2.5M
- gross revenue per location
* Revenue figures are gross revenue (sales), not profit. This registry does not report operating costs or profit.
Network Size & Growth
Net Growth Rate
Year-over-year unit change
40 locations closed in the last reporting year
Quick Facts
- Sector
- Food & Beverage
- Subsector
- fast casual restaurant
- Founded
- 1987
- Franchising Since
- 1993
- Headquarters
- MO
- FDD Year
- 2024
- Item 19
- Disclosed
Important Notice · Panera Bread
This Panera Bread page is a registry comparison record, not a verified FDD extract. It does not establish suitability, operating costs, profitability, or expected results for Panera Bread.
Large-network capital outlay for Panera Bread
Signature read: 2,137 locations · Item 7 low $900K
Panera Bread, a JAB Holding Co franchise, has been franchising since 1993 - 6 years after the concept was founded in 1987 , currently with 2,137 total locations (903 franchised, 1,234 company-owned; 42% of the recorded total is franchised) in the food & beverage sector, headquartered in MO. The listed total initial investment is $900K to $3.7M, recorded as a low-to-high range in the registry. The registry separately records a franchise-fee field of $35K; its summary does not reproduce every Item 7 line item.
Ongoing royalties run 5.0% of gross sales; the registry also records a 2.0% advertising-fund field, for a 7.0% arithmetic total. The registry records an Item 19 field for Panera Bread. Financial-performance disclosure in Item 19 is voluntary under the FTC Franchise Rule. The reported average gross revenue per location is $2.5M; applying the listed royalty rate to that reported average yields $125K as a simple arithmetic illustration, not a cost or profit estimate. This reported revenue field is not a profitability measure; operating costs are outside this registry.
Panera Bread's network is expanding: unit count grew at a 0.5% net rate over the past year (50 openings, 40 closures). The registry records both the reported percentage and the count of openings and closures when those fields are available.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a Panera Bread franchise cost?
How many Panera Bread locations are there?
What are the ongoing fees for a Panera Bread franchise?
Related reading for Panera Bread: Understanding FDDs , Panera Bread lists Item 19 revenue here, how Item 19 fits the 23-item FDD.
Snapshot uses the registry's listed Item 7 initial-investment low and Item 20 location-count fields. It is a descriptive comparison, not a ranking or investment recommendation.
How Panera Bread's Item 7 and Item 19 fields are labeled (expand)
Nationwide brands with similar investment or network size
Two data-derived peer sets for Panera Bread , both outside HQ state MO : nearest Item 7 lows and nearest total-location counts, not the same-sector roster below.
Similar listed investment
Nearest Item 7 lows ($900K here).
Similar network size
Nearest total location counts (2,137 here).
What to do with this
Panera Bread at a glance, drawn from the same figures above.
- Panera Bread scores 63/100 (D) on our composite opportunity read, combining net unit growth and Item 19 financial-disclosure transparency.
- Its $900K – $3.7M entry cost runs above the typical food & beverage franchise.
- Ranks #36 of 223 listed franchises by initial investment. See rankings
- Del Taco sits at a comparable investment level ($839K) in the same sector. Compare
Editorial comparison registry, not a source-linked FDD record. Verify the current FDD before relying on any figure.
Read our methodology - what this registry can and cannot establish.
Source: PlainFranchise editorial registry Record-level FDD source link and retrieval date pending
| Publisher | PlainFranchise |
| Sources | Public state franchise disclosure registries and FDD filings |