$3.59 or $3.89 buys the McDouble behind a Poor Man's Big Mac; the sauce carries no published price.
A Poor Man's Big Mac is a McDouble ordered as a grill order: shredded lettuce added, Big Mac sauce instead of ketchup and mustard. The beef half prices cleanly at $3.59 or $3.89 against $5.99 for a Big Mac, a gap of $2.10 to $2.40. What no published US listing carries is a price for Big Mac sauce, so the finished total cannot be computed here. The rest is a modification any till already handles.
McDouble price and calories · Big Mac price, the figure this is measured against · Daily Double price and calories · McDonald's secret menu — what a grill order covers
What you need
8 itemsWhat can be priced, and what cannot
| Line | Price | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| McDouble, the base sandwich | $3.59 or $3.89 | 390 Cal |
| Shredded lettuce and Big Mac sauce, added | Not published | Not published |
| Total for the priceable part | $3.59 or $3.89 | 390 Cal |
| Big Mac, the sandwich being imitated | $5.99 | 580 Cal |
How it works
Ask for a McDouble first
Start from the listed sandwich, which is two beef patties and one slice of cheese. Everything after this point is a change to that item rather than a new one.
Name the changes one at a time
Add shredded lettuce, add Big Mac sauce, hold the ketchup and the mustard. Said in that order the request maps onto buttons the crew already use every shift.
Ask what the additions cost before confirming
Some restaurants charge for sauce and some do not, and no published US listing carries a Big Mac sauce line at all. Sauces that do carry one, such as Tangy Barbeque Sauce, were recorded at $0.29 with readings up to $0.40.
Weigh it against simply buying a Big Mac
A Big Mac was recorded at $5.99 and a McDouble at $3.59 or $3.89, so the saving before any sauce charge is $2.10 to $2.40. That gap is the entire argument for this build.
Consider the listed alternative
A Daily Double at $4.39 already arrives with lettuce on a double patty, where restaurants carry it. It costs more than a McDouble and asks nothing of anybody.
If something goes wrong
The crew charged for the sauce
- Cause
- Sauce pricing is an operator decision and nothing central governs it
- Fix
- Ask for the figure before confirming. Listed dipping sauces were recorded at $0.29, with individual readings as high as $0.40, so a small charge is ordinary.
The sauce was refused outright
- Cause
- Some restaurants ration Big Mac sauce to Big Macs to keep portioning under control
- Fix
- Take the no. A McDouble with shredded lettuce is still the cheaper sandwich, and the sauce was always the negotiable part.
It arrived without the middle bun
- Cause
- The three-piece bun belongs to the Big Mac build and is not a McDouble component
- Fix
- That layer is not coming. This build imitates the taste rather than the construction, which is why it costs less.
The saving turned out smaller than expected
- Cause
- The McDouble ties at two values and any sauce charge eats into the gap
- Fix
- Work from $2.10 rather than $2.40 and treat anything better as a bonus. At the top of the McDouble tie the margin is already thin.
The app has no shredded lettuce option
- Cause
- The app exposes only the modifiers configured for that sandwich
- Fix
- Order at the counter instead, where a crew member can add it manually. This is one request the till usually accommodates.
A second restaurant priced it differently
- Cause
- Around 95% of US restaurants are franchised and each sets its own board
- Fix
- Compare the McDouble line rather than the finished build. That is the only part with a figure anyone can check.
What’s fixed, and what actually varies
This is the rare build where the ordering is easy and the pricing is the hard part.
Fixed
- The base is a McDouble, a permanent US menu item at 390 calories
- Adding lettuce and swapping sauce is a grill order, which crew handle routinely
- A Big Mac was recorded at $5.99, so the beef-only saving is $2.10 to $2.40
- No published US listing prices Big Mac sauce as a purchasable item
- The result is not a Big Mac and is not built to the Big Mac specification
Varies
- The McDouble itself, tied at $3.59 or $3.89 across published US listings
- Whether the restaurant charges for the added sauce, and how much
- Whether shredded lettuce is stocked, since it is not on every sandwich
- How a franchisee has told its crew to ring up extras
- Whether the third bun layer is offered, which most restaurants will not do
Build it in the McDonald's app with your restaurant selected and watch the running total as each modifier is tapped. Where the app charges for sauce it shows the amount before you pay, which settles the one number this page cannot give you. Where the app offers no sauce modifier at all, the question moves to the counter and the answer is whatever that operator says.
A cheap imitation, and a total nobody can finish
Almost every named McDonald's build is an assembly, meaning two or three sandwiches bought separately and stacked by the customer. This one is different in kind. It changes a single listed sandwich, which is precisely what the company calls a grill order, and it is the clearest example on the topic of a request the till was designed to take.
What gets ordered is a McDouble with shredded lettuce added and Big Mac sauce in place of ketchup and mustard. Two beef patties, one slice of cheese, and the flavour people associate with the bigger sandwich. Nobody is being asked to invent anything, and that matters far more than it sounds, because the usual reason a named build dies at the counter is that it needs an assembly step no till can record and no crew member has ever been trained to perform.
Pricing goes half way and stops. A McDouble was recorded at $3.59 or $3.89, tied, because two figures sat level in published US listings. A Big Mac was recorded at $5.99. The difference is $2.10 at the narrow end and $2.40 at the wide end, and that difference is the whole point of the build. Then the trail runs out. No US listing checked here prices Big Mac sauce as a thing you can buy, so the finished sandwich has no computable total, only a floor of $3.59 or $3.89.
What can be said about sauce charges comes from the sauces that do carry prices. Tangy Barbeque Sauce was recorded at $0.29, with readings running to $0.35, and Creamy Ranch Sauce the same at $0.29 with a top reading of $0.40. Those are indications of what a sauce line looks like, not a price for this one.
There is also a listed sandwich doing something similar. A Daily Double, where a restaurant carries it, was recorded at $4.39 with lettuce already on it. Against a modified McDouble it costs more and asks less, which for a lot of people is the better trade.
Questions people ask
What is a Poor Man's Big Mac?
A McDouble with shredded lettuce added and Big Mac sauce swapped in for ketchup and mustard. It imitates the flavour of the larger sandwich without the third bun layer or the second patty of cheese.
How much does it cost?
The McDouble part is $3.59 or $3.89. Nothing published prices the sauce, so the finished figure cannot be given honestly, and anyone quoting one has estimated it.
How much does it save against a Big Mac?
$2.10 to $2.40 before any charge for sauce, working from $5.99 for a Big Mac against the two recorded McDouble figures.
Will the crew actually do it?
Usually, because this is a modification rather than an assembly. Adding lettuce and changing a sauce are ordinary till operations, and no stacking is involved.
Is it the same as a Big Mac?
It is not. There is no middle bun, the cheese and patty layout differs, and the calorie count of the base sandwich stays at 390 against the 580 McDonald's publishes for a Big Mac.
Is there a version with more cheese?
Starting from a Double Cheeseburger gets a second slice, though its price could not be settled: two readings came back $2.45 apart, spanning $3.74 to $6.19.
Are these figures from McDonald's?
The calorie counts are. The prices were recorded from published US listings on 19 August 2026, and the company publishes no single-item prices of its own.