MOD's New Signature Pizzas Aren't Bad, But Who Goes To MOD For A Pre-Designed Pizza?

MOD Pizza was founded on the idea that everyone should be able to mod — or modify — their own pizza by choosing from a variety of toppings to create something unique just for themselves. The company, in fact, offers 40 toppings and eight finishing sauces, meaning that there are plenty of possible combinations that can be cooked to order in a matter of minutes. 

For anyone who finds a menu with this many options intimidating, MOD also offers a broad range of signature combinations to help ambivalent customers decide. And, in August 2026, the brand announced several permanent menu changes, emphasizing sizing and other revisions based on customer feedback. With this update, MOD is adding five savory signature pizzas to its permanent menu — some of which are tweaks to previous recipes — and a new dessert pizza. Every savory pie at MOD is of course open to modification; one can remove any ingredient they don't want, specify light or extra for any ingredient, and indicate if they want it lightly baked or extra-crispy.

To celebrate these new menu changes, I decided to taste through all of the permanent additions to the MOD menu — available at participating locations — to see which, if any, are worth ordering over that standard cheese or pepperoni that you know you always end up going with in the face of paralyzing choice.

To evaluate the new signature pizzas on MOD Pizza's permanent menu, I ordered each from my local store in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. For the savories, I grabbed a 6-inch personal option — one can, begrudgingly, only eat so much pizza — while for the dessert-themed CinnaMOD, I chose the only size (11-inch thick crust). My store accidentally made me a 11-inch thin crust of the Carnivore, but only charged for a mini. Since each option uses essentially the same crust, for my honest review I focused on the flavor of individual toppings as well as the combination's overall balance.

As part of this mini brand refresh, MOD is emphasizing the intuitiveness of its ordering experience, prioritizing simplicity and ease. In particular, its press release about these changes calls out the sizing of pizzas and salads, suggesting it will be more familiar and intuitive. To my eye, however, this aspect appears unchanged: Both pizza and salads are still offered in mini, mod, and mega (perhaps there was some size standardization, or there is more still to come?).

As for the ordering process, I placed an order online, and the last of my six pizzas was about to come out of the oven as I walked into the store. Overall this method was a breeze and makes me want to order with MOD again. Pricewise, all specialty pies start at $9.89 for a small (6-inch) thin crust, and run up to $17.39 (for an 11-inch alternative crusts) at the time of writing.

The Carnivore, an update to the beloved Mad Dog, this tweak adds Parmesan and crispy bacon to what was an already meat-dense pie. It starts with a base of red sauce and mozzarella that's then topped with pepperoni, ground beef, and mild Italian sausage. Meat lovers' pizzas are not a new concept, of course, and people who love this style probably aren't going to have their minds changed by me, but this combo is too overwhelming. The beauty of great pizza lies in its simplicity; yes, there can be complexity too, but this one is all aggressiveness, just layers of meat upon meat upon meat to the point that it overpowers the experience. While each of these toppings on its own is fine, when they're all put on the same slice, it's just too dang much.

Considering that, then, it probably makes more sense to pick one (or even two) meats to create a more balanced, less aggressive eating experience. Perhaps not surprisingly, the pepperoni stands out as the best of the choices; it's a classic pizza topping for a reason. I also enjoyed the little pops of fennel from the Italian sausage, but overall, this meat isn't as flavorful as the pepperoni. The ground beef tastes like ground beef, which may make some people happy, but to me, probably doesn't belong on pizza. And while the bacon was okay, it was hardly as crispy as was promised.

There's this common trope on cooking competition shows — Chopped, Top Chef, etc. — where the competing chef will present their food using the name of a well-known dish, yet they will have made some modification or tweak to the recipe that makes it not really that thing anymore. Invariably, the judges send them home for naming a dish one thing and serving another, whereas if the contestant had just presented it without a name, it probably would've been considered delicious. This is a long-winded way of saying that referencing "Margherita" here is problematic, because while a loose connection is evident, MOD's variation ends up being something else entirely.

In addition to the basic Margherita pizza ingredients — tomato, mozzarella, and basil — this one also includes Parmesan, sliced tomatoes, and chopped garlic. It's the latter ingredient that makes a notable difference here, as unlike a true Margherita, this one is aggressively garlic-forward. Of course, it's probably safe to assume that many people reading this just got excited with the mention of assertive garlic. This ingredient is arguably more prominent in Italian-American cuisine than classic Italian, and one might say that the MOD-gherita is an appropriately Italian-American version of an Italian icon. In the end, however, while this is sure to please some garlic lovers, for me all that scrappy allium took away from the impeccable balance that already exists on a classic Margherita.

The now-outdated menu's Calexico has some similarities to this newbie, though the latter leans much more into the Buffalo wing theme — not to be confused with Buffalo-style pizza. It starts with a base made from the famous wing sauce, then adds mozzarella, Gorgonzola, cheddar, grilled chicken, olive oil, and, finally, a hot Buffalo drizzle. While the emphatic sauce is certainly the lead flavor here — clearly trading on the essence of the celebrated wings dish — the overall experience isn't too antagonistic. There's a lingering spiciness, yes, but it feels integrated into the whole rather than heat for heat's sake.

Interestingly, the Gorgonzola — a cheese known for its assertiveness — comes across as rather muted, featured in background notes rather than prominent ones. The funky blue cheese is present when bitten into, meaning it's never over-the-top. And, thinking about it, this is an ingredient where judicious use is probably a good thing. The poultry, on the other hand, might be applied too prudently, so someone looking for a true chicken wing experience might consider adding extra chicken to this particular order.

This one is a tweaked version of the Caspian, which was MOD's original take on the iconic barbecue chicken pizza. This update replaces Gorgonzola with cheddar, and adds crispy bacon and a bit of cilantro leaf to a pie that also features lots of sweet barbecue sauce, diced chicken, and sliced red onion. The Smoke Show leverages sweet barbecue sauce both as the base sauce and as the finishing drizzle that goes on top, so there's a ton of that flavor here. It's quite sweet and a little bit tangy, and is surprisingly complex and delicious. That being said, I'm not sure I could eat more than a slice of this pie because it would quickly become cloying.

While the cilantro and the red onion do try to balance out all that sweetness, they're not up to the herculean task. Taking that into consideration, then — even for those who are huge fans of barbecue pizza — I might suggest ordering light barbecue sauce on the base, or skipping the sweet barbecue glaze, to help manage the otherwise intense sweetness. Alternatively, this is a good one to get for a crowd, where sampling different options is the way of the day, as a single slice of this hits the spot just about perfectly.

Veg Out, a brand new option on MOD's updated menu, starts with a red sauce and cheese base and adds mushrooms, green bell peppers, sliced red onions, black olives, diced tomatoes, and oregano. Like the Carnivore, this one suffers from topping overload, though perhaps not quite as much, since the veggies are more gustatorily mellow. Still, it feels like the final product might achieve more balance with just one or two vegetable toppings, versus the six featured here.

If I were the one designing this pie, I'd select just the mushrooms and bell peppers, the two toppings that add the most diverse-yet-harmonious flavor to the classic pizza base without overwhelming it. The diced tomatoes are fine — if perhaps extraneous on an already red pie — whereas the black olives and red onions detract from rather than enhance the overall flavor, at least from my perspective. Overall, despite a few knocks, this is still a tasty pizza, and anyone looking to increase their vegetable intake while still enjoying the occasional pizza could do a lot worse.

As the chain's take on a shareable dessert pizza, the CinnaMOD includes cinnamon sugar, salted caramel, and vanilla icing, with a buttery sauce on MOD's thick crust (which isn't all that thick, to be honest). First, this decadent treat is delicious; it's almost like a cinnamon bun and a pizza had a baby. It's relatively sweet, yes, but the cinnamon spice adds balance, creating an eating experience that's akin to a warm hug.

The one drawback here is that the dough itself can be somewhat tough. Since there's no cheese like there is on the savory pies, there's nothing to keep the center of the crust soft and pliable, so it instead becomes notably firm and chewy. This also makes it difficult to reheat without it becoming tooth-threateningly crunchy.

This dessert pizza only comes in one size — 11 inches for $9.99 — meaning it lives up to its shareable description. It's also sliced into strips instead of wedges, which is good because I can't see myself eating more than a strip or two. (Or, more realistically, once I inevitably succumb to the repeat siren call of cinnamon and sugar, I'll probably regret it.)

While all of these options are solid enough, I'm not sure any of them convince me to choose a MOD-designed combination over my own in the future. After all, isn't the idea that I can "mod" any pie one of the main draws of MOD in the first place? Considering the Carnivore and Veg Out, with their abundance of toppings that tipped the delicate balance that is a finely made pizza, to the Smoke Show and Firebird, with their alternative sauces that were interesting and fun to try but not exactly flavors I want in abundance on pizza night, I think I'll stick with creating my own, or instead go with simpler, more reliable classics like Maddy's Favorite (cheese pizza) or the OG Pepperoni.

The CinnaMOD, on the other hand, sits in its own category, not actually a true MOD pizza (because it can't be modified), but is also delicious. Though I had a few minor complaints about its texture, I'd happily order this to share with a large group if MOD was our destination.