Restaurant Brands International itself ran 994 Burger King restaurants in the United States at 30 June 2026, bought with Carrols Restaurant Group, which leaves it less franchised than McDonald's or Wendy's. Tighter ownership should mean tighter prices. Two lists checked on 19 August 2026 instead quote the Whopper at $7.49 and $10.59, while a third, titled as an August 2026 update but bylined October 2023, still prints $4.19. Burger King menu prices scatter because nobody rechecked.
All Burger King guides on this site
What you need
13 itemsHow it works
Check whether the list names a restaurant
Of the three compared here, only one does: it confirms its prices against a store at 658 Oregon Way in Longview, Washington while averaging 6,710 locations. The other two name no market at all.
Read the byline, not the title
One list is titled as an August 2026 update and carries an internal date of 27 October 2023. Its $7.29 Impossible Whopper is the figure that has been recopied across the web ever since.
Treat the widely quoted $5.49 as unsourced
A $5.49 Whopper average circulates everywhere. None of the three lists checked on 19 August 2026 prints it, and Burger King publishes no national price of its own.
Price the item in the app with your restaurant selected
That number belongs to your restaurant, including whether it is one of the 994 the franchisor runs directly.
Check Royal Perks separately
App offers and counter prices are set independently, and an offer that exists in the app can be absent at the counter of the same restaurant.
If something goes wrong
Three sites gave me three Whopper prices
- Cause
- None of them describes your restaurant
- Fix
- $7.49 and $10.59 were both published as current on 19 August 2026, and $4.19 comes from a page bylined October 2023. Only the app, with your restaurant selected, resolves it.
The Impossible Whopper cost far more than $7.29
- Cause
- That figure traces to a list bylined October 2023
- Fix
- The other two lists give $8.29 and $11.99. Treat $7.29 as a historic figure that survived by being copied.
The $5 Your Way Meal was not available
- Cause
- Value platforms run at participating restaurants
- Fix
- Only one of the three lists carries it at all. Check the app for your restaurant before travelling for it.
A Royal Perks offer did not apply at the counter
- Cause
- App and till pricing are set separately
- Fix
- Order in the app and collect. The offer lives in the app rather than in the counter till system.
Two nearby restaurants charge differently
- Cause
- One may be franchisee-run and the other franchisor-run
- Fix
- RBI directly operated 994 US restaurants at 30 June 2026. Neither the signage nor the menu says which kind you are standing in.
What’s fixed, and what actually varies
Burger King is the case where the ownership story and the published spread point in opposite directions.
Fixed
- Restaurant Brands International, of Miami, Florida, sets no restaurant prices
- RBI operated 994 US Burger King restaurants at 30 June 2026 through Restaurant Holdings
- Those came from Carrols Restaurant Group — 1,023 restaurants in 23 states, May 2024
- RBI has said it will refranchise the majority within seven years
- Burger King publishes no national price list
Varies
- The Whopper price, published at $4.19, $7.49 and $10.59
- Whether your restaurant is franchisee-run or one of the 994
- Whether the $5 Your Way Meal is offered at all
- Which Royal Perks offers apply at the counter rather than in the app
- Whether onion rings are stocked, which changes several combos
Select your restaurant in the app and add a Whopper to a collection basket without paying. Compare that against the three published figures. If it lands between $7.49 and $10.59 you have learned nothing from them, which is the point.
How Burger King compares
Ownership normally predicts how far published prices scatter. Here it does the opposite.
| Chain | Who sets the shelf price | Restaurants not company-run | Why the published tables go wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burger King | The franchisee, except at 994 restaurants | Roughly five in six | A 2023 list republished under an August 2026 title |
| McDonald's | The franchisee | 13,062 of 13,706 — about 95% | An $8 company meal price missing from every table |
| Popeyes | The franchisee, under the same parent | 3,079 of 3,177 — about 97% | Lists agree on the sandwich and split $2 on its combo |
| Whataburger | Mostly the company | Around one in five | Tightest ownership, and scatter it cannot explain |
Counts from RBI's 2025 results and the Franchise Times Top 400, checked 19 August 2026.
Burger King runs more of its own restaurants outright than any other chain on this page, though Whataburger owns much the larger share of its own. Its published figures still scatter by $3.10 on the Whopper. Ownership did not cause that gap; three lists not checking each other did, and one of them stopped checking in 2023.
The chain that owns most of its restaurants has the worst price data
On this site the rule has held everywhere else: the more franchised the chain, the more real scatter there is in what people pay, and the more excusable a wide published range. Burger King breaks it.
On 16 May 2024 Restaurant Brands International, of Miami, Florida, completed the purchase of Carrols Restaurant Group and its 1,023 Burger King restaurants across 23 states, plus 59 Popeyes. RBI put them in a segment called Restaurant Holdings, said it would spend $500 million remodelling more than 600 of them, and stated it intends to refranchise the majority within seven years. That segment also holds Popeyes China and Firehouse Subs Brazil. At 30 June 2026 it ran 994 Burger King restaurants in the United States, down from 1,012 a year earlier. Roughly one US Burger King in seven is currently run by the franchisor rather than an independent operator — a higher share than at McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC, Taco Bell or Popeyes.
So the published range here should be tighter than at any of the more franchised chains just listed. It is not. Two lists checked on 19 August 2026 quote the Whopper at $7.49 and $10.59, the Impossible Whopper at $8.29 and $11.99, and the Whopper Jr. at $3.49 and $5.89. The Original Chicken Sandwich appears at $5.99 and $9.09. A third list sits below every one of those figures, at $4.19, $7.29 and $2.19 for the same three sandwiches.
That third list explains itself in its metadata. Titled as an August 2026 update, it carries an internal date of 27 October 2023, so its figures are excluded from the current band here. Its $7.29 Impossible Whopper is the number recirculated everywhere since, including in earlier versions of this page. Only the dearest of the three names the restaurant it checked, at 658 Oregon Way in Longview, Washington. The most honest of them quotes the highest price, and the two that name no market disagree by $3.30.
Questions people ask
How much is a Whopper?
Two lists checked on 19 August 2026 give $7.49 and $10.59, and a third, bylined October 2023, still prints $4.19. No national price is published, so treat those as the span of what other people have printed rather than a price.
Why is $5.49 quoted everywhere?
It circulates as a national average, but none of the three lists checked here prints it and no company source states it. Unsourced averages persist in this category because they are easy to copy.
How much is the Impossible Whopper?
Current lists give $8.29 and $11.99. The $7.29 still quoted everywhere comes from a page bylined 27 October 2023, which is why it looks stable across the web while the others move.
Does Burger King own its restaurants?
More than it used to. RBI bought Carrols Restaurant Group and its 1,023 Burger King restaurants in May 2024, and still ran 994 of them at 30 June 2026.
Will those restaurants be sold back to franchisees?
RBI has said it intends to refranchise the majority within seven years, after spending $500 million remodelling more than 600 of them.
Is the $5 Your Way Meal still running?
One of the three lists carries it at $5.00 and the other two do not mention it. Value platforms run at participating restaurants, so the app for your location is the only answer.
Are Royal Perks prices different from the counter?
Often. App offers and till prices are set separately, and an offer visible in the app can be absent at the same restaurant's counter.