McDonald's menu prices vary more than any published table admits. The chain is 95% franchised in the United States — 644 of 13,706 restaurants are company-operated — so genuine price scatter is real. What is not real is the gap between lists. McDonald's advertised the Big Mac Meal at $8 in September 2025, and two price sites checked on 19 August 2026 print $9.34 and $11.49 for it. The company's own release carries the rider nobody copies: prices and participation may vary.
All McDonald's guides on this site
What you need
12 itemsHow it works
Start from the only price the company has stated
On 2 September 2025 McDonald's Corporation named an $8 Big Mac Meal and a $5 Sausage McMuffin with Egg Meal. Company figures with a date attached outrank anything a price site averaged.
Read the disclaimer on that same announcement
It says prices and participation may vary. A national advertiser declining to guarantee its own national price answers the whole question, and no price table reprints it.
Price the item in the app with your restaurant selected
The app quotes the restaurant you pick rather than an average of copies. That is the figure you will be charged.
Check whether the list names a market or a date
A single tracker states its method: store-level prices from the McDonald's app across 9,259 US neighbourhoods, updated 11 August 2026. The others give a month and no market.
Test a list against an item it should get right
Two lists agree to the cent on the Filet-O-Fish at $5.29 and sit $2.40 apart on 20-piece Chicken McNuggets. A table exact on one line and a third out on the next was not read off one menu.
If something goes wrong
I paid more than every list said
- Cause
- No published list is tied to your restaurant
- Fix
- Normal rather than an error. Price it in the app with your restaurant selected; that subtotal is the only figure describing your store.
The $8 Big Mac Meal was not available
- Cause
- Participation is a franchisee decision
- Fix
- The company's release says prices and participation may vary. A restaurant can decline the promotion without announcing that it has.
Two sites differ by $2.40 on the same McNuggets
- Cause
- One list stopped being checked
- Fix
- Compare them on an item both should get right. Agreement to the cent on the Filet-O-Fish alongside a third-out McNuggets line marks the stale one.
A tracker's own pages give different numbers
- Cause
- Item pages and state pages are generated separately
- Fix
- The same tracker prints Texas at $5.04 on its state page and $5.05 on its Big Mac page, then calls the state-to-state gap $2.33 while quoting $3.99 to $9.50.
The airport restaurant charged far more
- Cause
- Captive-audience siting
- Fix
- Airports, motorway services and stadiums price above the surrounding market, and account for much of the $9.50 top end.
What’s fixed, and what actually varies
Ownership sets how much of the published spread is genuine. At McDonald's most of it is — but not all, and the remainder is measurable.
Fixed
- Franchisees set prices; McDonald's Corporation does not
- 644 of 13,706 restaurants in the US are company-operated, about 4.7%
- The $8 and $5 Extra Value Meal prices were company-announced in September 2025
- That announcement says prices and participation may vary
- The app quotes the restaurant you select, not an average
Varies
- The shelf price of every item, restaurant by restaurant
- Whether your restaurant runs the advertised Extra Value Meal at all
- Whether app pricing matches the counter board
- Which published list you land on, and how stale it is
- Whether the site is an airport, motorway or stadium location
Build the order to a basket in the app without paying, then compare that subtotal against the $8 the company advertised for the Big Mac Meal. Well above it means a franchisee that did not take the promotion.
How McDonald's compares
Menu-price tables fail differently at different chains, and ownership decides how.
| Chain | Who sets the shelf price | Restaurants not company-run | Why the published tables go wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| McDonald's | The franchisee, at almost every restaurant | 13,062 of 13,706 — about 95% | Real scatter, plus lists that miss the company's own $8 meal |
| Wendy's | The franchisee | 5,546 of 5,969 — about 93% | Lists still printing a bundle the company repriced |
| Burger King | Mixed — the franchisor runs 994 in the US itself | Roughly five in six | Least franchised of the four, and its figures scatter anyway |
| KFC | The franchisee, at all but 80 restaurants | 3,589 of 3,669 — a trade count | Bucket pricing genuinely varies; no national list exists |
Franchised counts from company filings and the Franchise Times Top 400, checked 19 August 2026.
McDonald's has the strongest excuse here for a wide range: 13,062 independent operators set their own prices. It still does not explain two lists agreeing to the cent on a Filet-O-Fish then sitting $2.40 apart on McNuggets.
The company priced the meal itself, and the lists still disagree
Ownership decides how wrong a menu-price table can be, and McDonald's sits at the far franchised end. Its Form 10-K for 2025 puts roughly 95% of its restaurants in the United States in franchisee hands, and the company's own year-end count for 31 December 2025 splits that estate 13,062 franchised against 644 company-operated. QSR Magazine, reporting in May 2026, quoted chief financial officer Ian Borden calling company-operated margins unacceptable. A network priced by 13,062 independent businesses genuinely scatters, so some of the spread in the published tables is real.
The rest is not, and there is a clean way to separate the two. On 2 September 2025 McDonald's Corporation brought back the Extra Value Meal, setting the Big Mac Meal at $8 and the Sausage McMuffin with Egg Meal at $5, and saying the eight meals saved 15 percent against buying the parts separately. That is a company-stated price, the rarest thing here — and the release still carried the rider that prices and participation may vary.
Set that against the lists. A tracker sampling store-level prices from the McDonald's app across 9,259 US neighbourhoods, updated on 11 August 2026, puts the Big Mac Meal at $9.34. A second, reviewed in May 2026, puts it at $11.49. Neither mentions the $8. The same two agree to the cent on the Filet-O-Fish at $5.29, then sit $2.40 apart on 20-piece Chicken McNuggets, $8.39 against $10.79. Franchise pricing does not explain a table exact on one line and a third out on the next.
The tracker also disagrees with itself. Its state page gives Texas $5.04 and calls the cheapest-to-dearest gap $2.33, with Alaska $7.39, Massachusetts $7.14 and California $6.70. Its Big Mac page gives Texas $5.05 and a national range of $3.99 to $9.50 — a gap of $5.51. Both carry the same August 2026 date.
Questions people ask
How much is a Big Mac?
Four lists checked on 19 August 2026 give $5.91, $5.99, $5.79 and a band of $5.69 to $6.72, so the published figures cluster near $6. A tracker stretches its own national range to $3.99 and $9.50. No company figure exists for the sandwich.
Does McDonald's publish any price itself?
Only promotional ones. It named an $8 Big Mac Meal and a $5 Sausage McMuffin with Egg Meal when the Extra Value Meal returned in September 2025 — and even there, prices and participation may vary.
Which states are cheapest and dearest?
One tracker puts Texas lowest at $5.04 and Alaska highest at $7.39, with Massachusetts $7.14 and California $6.70. A second site's Texas band starts at $5.29, above the first site's Texas average.
Why do two nearby restaurants charge differently?
Ownership, not distance. 13,062 of 13,706 restaurants in the US are run by franchisees who set their own prices, and two a mile apart can have different owners.
Why do published lists disagree so much?
They sample different restaurants at different times and print one number. The tell is internal inconsistency: exact agreement on a Filet-O-Fish at $5.29 next to a $2.40 gap on 20-piece Chicken McNuggets.
Is the meal cheaper than buying the parts?
McDonald's stated its eight Extra Value Meals saved 15 percent against an entree, medium fries and a drink separately. A tracker's figures imply the same: $9.34 for the meal, $11.23 for the parts.