The buying library
Beyond the build-out you would pay anyway: an upfront franchise fee, ongoing royalties commonly 5–9% of gross sales, plus a marketing fund of 2–4% — percentages of sales, not profit, in good months and bad. Total franchise investments disclosed in FDDs run from roughly $306K to over $1M for a single unit (franchise disclosure documents reviewed in our October 2026 scan). In exchange: a brand, a playbook, training and supply chains — things a first-time operator genuinely cannot Google their way to.
No fee, no royalty, no fund — and no playbook. Your costs are the ones this whole site computes: permits, build-out, mistakes. The independent's hidden tax is the learning curve; the franchise's hidden tax is the royalty on your best year, forever.
Don't read the table — run your verdict. Bracket a real listing in a minute.
Included in the $49 Opening Pack: the filled templates, trackers, calendars and worksheets for this door — built from the same dated datasets as the free checker above.
Sources: The FirstTableCheck cost + liquor datasets; valuation conventions: CT Acquisitions — Business Valuation Multiplier 2026; BizBen — How to Value a Restaurant in California 2026; 7shifts — How to Calculate Restaurant Value, 2026-10. Dataset checked October 23, 2026. Where a fee or rule is set by a county or city, this page says so instead of guessing a number.