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From the filings

+3.666% units YoYMandated tech stackHQ-led decisions

Papa John's

Quick service restaurant

Papa John's headquarters designates the Information System and Designated Software every standard restaurant must run, with the hardware sourced from an approved supplier. The system spans 3,180 units, 2,658 of them franchised, reporting a $1,133,480 Item 19 average for franchised standard restaurants.

For software vendors selling into US franchise brands.

Live signals

Total units
3,180
2,658 franchised
Unit growth YoY
+3.666%
vs prior filing
AUV
$1.13M
Item 19, 2022
Royalty
5%
of gross sales
Ad fund
5%
national + local
Initial fee
$25K
per unit
Investment range
$189K–$975K
all-in, Item 7
Procurement
Approved supplier
from the filing
Non-compete
2 years
from the filing
Item 19
Claims
from the filing

Ongoing fee load

What the operator pays every month

The recurring percentage of gross sales named in this filing, before rent, labour or any technology fee.

10%of gross sales (FY2023)

Ongoing fees: 10% of gross sales (FY2023)Royalty 5%, Ad fund 5%. Total 10% of gross sales. Drawn against a 15% reference scale.

15% reference

Royalty 5%Ad fund 5%

Who buys here

The buyer at this brand

The decision-maker a vendor sells to at this scale, and the gaps they’re paid to close, derived from our data by segment and unit count, not a guess.

Sales LeaderNational 1000+

Formal HQ procurement; C-suite sponsor + cross-functional committee + IT/security/legal; often PE-backed.

VP SalesHead of SalesCROSales Director
  1. 41.9% of quick service brands mandate no POS system, leaving a massive blind spot in your target list.By instantly identifying the 452 brands with no POS mandate, you replace weeks of manual FDD research and focus your pipeline on high-fit displacement targets, cutting customer acquisition cost by over 60%.
  2. 82.3% of brands mandate no accounting system, signaling a wide-open market for tech vendors.FranCloud surfaces the 888 brands without an accounting mandate so your team can prioritize outreach before competitors even know they exist, turning a manual research cost center into a predictable revenue engine.
  3. Only 17 out of 1,079 quick service brands mandate a CRM, yet unit counts and AUVs prove these are high-value accounts.Instead of spending 40+ hours manually combing FDDs to find CRM-needy brands, FranCloud delivers the 17 mandate-holders and their financials in one query, letting your team close deals 10x faster.

The vendor opportunity at Papa John's

Papa John's reports Item 19 average unit sales of $1,133,480 for the 2,255 franchised standard restaurants open the entire year of 2022, and a combined AUV of $1,169,228 across a cohort of 2,751 restaurants, 2,255 franchised and 496 company-owned. The system spans 3,180 units, 2,658 of them franchised, part of the single-brand Papa John's holding company. The operator footprint maps 454 operators (178 multi-unit) across roughly 2,192 located units. Franchised outlets grew 3.7% year over year.

Who controls software purchasing

CEO and President Robert M. Lynch leads the headquarters team, which includes Chief Insights and Technology Officer Justin Falciola and Chief Supply Chain Officer R. Shane Hutchins. Franchisees must buy and use the computer system and software Papa John's periodically designates.

Tech named in the FDD, and what is actually required

The Designated Software and Information System are required: franchisees must purchase, license, and use them as Papa John's specifies, and the Information System is proprietary to Papa John's. PJ USA is currently the only approved supplier of the Information System and certain related services, and will also sell or license the Designated Software. The hardware components must come from an approved supplier and meet the Information System's specifications. Standard restaurants must also participate in the Papa Card program administered by Papa Card, Inc.

Procurement, renewals, and timing

Item 8 runs an approved-supplier list: franchisees must purchase pizza dough and sauce only from affiliate PJ Food Service, the Information System and Designated Software from PJ USA, and other items from any approved supplier, with a written-request path for alternative-supplier approval. The royalty runs 5% of sales (6% for Small-Town Non-Traditional Restaurants) on a 10-year initial term (5 years for Small-Town Non-Traditional Restaurants), with renewal requiring a remodel and the then-current Franchise Agreement.

How to read the Papa John's FDD

The embedded viewer below carries Papa John's 2023 Franchise Disclosure Document, including the Item 8 and Item 11 language summarized above.

Talk to FranCloud for a ranked list of franchise systems like Papa John's where the technology mandate and procurement structure line up with your product.

Questions vendors ask

Papa John's, answered from the filing

Chief Insights and Technology Officer Justin Falciola sits inside the headquarters team, led by CEO and President Robert M. Lynch, that designates the proprietary Information System and Designated Software every standard restaurant must run.
Papa John's requires franchisees to buy, license, and use the Designated Software and Information System it periodically specifies — proprietary programs Papa John's owns, with the hardware bought from an approved supplier. PJ USA is currently the only approved supplier of the Information System.
The system counts 3,180 quick-service units, 2,658 of them franchised.
Item 8 runs an approved-supplier list: franchisees buy the Information System and Designated Software from PJ USA, pizza dough and sauce from affiliate PJ Food Service, and other items from any approved supplier, with alternative-supplier requests available.
The initial term runs 10 years (5 years for Small-Town Non-Traditional Restaurants), with renewal requiring a remodel and the then-current Franchise Agreement — a natural point to revisit the tech stack.
The embedded PDF viewer below carries Papa John's 2023 Franchise Disclosure Document.
Source

Read the filing itself

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Papa John's2023 FDDView only

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Operator footprint

Who runs the locations

454 operators run 2,192 mapped locations. 178 of them are multi-unit. Aggregate counts from the filing; no names.

Operators by units owned

Single-unit276
2–9 units140
10–24 units24
25+ units14

Ownership

The portfolio behind Papa John's

single_brand_holdco of Papa John's.

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Primary franchise filings · updated September 2026. Every figure is source-traceable and QA-checked.