Why Five Guys Is So Expensive Compared To Other Burger Chains

When the craving for a burger and fries strikes, you don't want to wait around for something fancy and over-the-top. You want it hot and delicious, you want it now, and you want it for a reasonable price. Fast food burger chains have typically delivered on this, but in recent years, getting that reliable burger on the cheap has been harder to come by. 

Five Guys specifically has been called out for this repeatedly, especially after a picture of a receipt showing the cost of a bacon cheeseburger ($12.49), small fries ($5.19), and a soda ($2.89) for one person went viral on social media, which with sales tax included came in at a pricey $21.91.As long ago as 2010, Five Guys CEO Jerry Murrell attempted to justify the prices in an interview with Inc Magazine, noting that the price of food at the burger chain fluctuates purely based on margins.

"We raise our prices to reflect whatever our food costs are," he said. "So, if the mayonnaise guy triples his price, we pay triple for the mayonnaise!" If this is in fact the case, and Five Guys is raising prices based solely on the price of its ingredients, it checks out — cattle prices in the U.S. set record highs in August and September of 2025, and continue to climb. According to a September report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of beef and veal was up 14.7% compared to the same point in 2024.

While the rising price of beef is certainly one of the reasons a Five Guys meal can set you back what may feel like a tiny fortune, it's not the only one. In addition to using fresh, never-frozen ingredients and offering unlimited burger toppings like grilled mushrooms, grilled onions, jalapeño peppers, and pickles at no additional cost, Five Guys also fries its french fries in expensive peanut oil. This is way pricier than more common fry oils like soybean or canola. For a quick price comparison, a 35 pound container of peanut oil from Costco costs $65.82, while a 33 pound container of soybean oil from Costco costs $38.58. Despite the heftier price tag, Five Guys opts for the 100% refined peanut oil to provide what they believe is the best possible flavor for its boardwalk-style fries.

There's also the matter of the size of the burger patties. A Five Guys beef patty weighs about 3.6 ounces, and since a regular burger has two patties, that means each burger has over seven ounces of beef. Compared to other fast food burger chains, that's quite a beefy burger — McDonald's burger patties clock in at about 1.6 ounces, meaning a Big Mac, which has two beef patties, has about 3.2 ounces of beef, total. A burger patty on a Burger King Whopper weighs in at four ounces (before being cooked), a noticeably hefty patty. However, unlike the others, a Whopper only has one patty on it, not two, meaning you're still getting less beef than the regular Five Guys burger.