Americans eat roughly 180 slices of pizza per year. That’s enough to fill a full-sized suitcase, which is a weird way to measure pizza consumption, but it makes a point — we eat a lot of it. And because we eat so much of it, we deserve to not get ripped off every time we order a large pepperoni.
But here’s the thing: pizza prices have climbed hard. The national average for a whole pizza jumped from $17.81 in 2023 to $18.33 in 2024. Ingredients across the board — tomato sauce, mozzarella, flour — all cost more now. That means chains are either raising prices, cutting quality, or both. And a lot of them are doing both.
So which chains are giving you the least bang for your buck? After combing through customer reviews, Reddit threads, pricing data, and food quality reports, these five chains came up again and again as the ones people regret spending money on. Ranked from bad to worst, here they are.
5. Papa John’s
Papa John’s isn’t making terrible pizza. That’s not really the problem. The problem is that they’re charging you like it’s great pizza, and it just… isn’t. The Louisville-based chain saw North American sales drop by 1% during the second quarter of 2023, and even CEO Rob Lynch admitted during an earnings call that “some of the pricing had gotten out in front of where the consumer was willing to spend.” That’s corporate-speak for “we pushed it too far and people stopped ordering.”
One Reddit user posted a receipt showing a Shaq-a-Roni pizza at $17.99 and an Epic Pepperoni-Stuffed Crust pizza at $18.99. After a $2 coupon, $8.99 in delivery fees, and $3.14 in taxes, that came to $47.11 for two pizzas — before tipping the driver. Nearly fifty bucks for two chain pizzas. That’s approaching the price of a decent sit-down dinner for two.
The general consensus online is that Papa John’s is only worth ordering if you’re working the deals through the app. Without coupons, you’re paying a premium for pizza that doesn’t earn it. One frustrated customer summed it up: “When did it become normal to spend $29.99 on a pie?” Good question.
4. Pizza Hut
This one stings because a lot of us grew up with Pizza Hut. The red roof. The pan pizza. The Book It! program. But the Pizza Hut of 2024 is not the Pizza Hut you remember, and people are angry about it.
With over 6,500 stores in the U.S., Pizza Hut drew more customer complaints about pricing than any other major chain. A large one-topping pizza regularly runs between $16 and $23 depending on your location. One customer reported paying $87 for two stuffed crust pizzas and 12 wings — without the tip. Eighty-seven dollars. For Pizza Hut.
But the pricing wouldn’t matter as much if the quality held up, and it hasn’t. Sales have weakened in recent years, and the brand has struggled to keep up with what customers actually want. One Reddit user put it plainly: “I can’t remember the last time I’ve had such a dull, soulless, cardboard-tasting pizza.” Another wrote, “I feel sorry for the people today who will never know what an original pan pizza from Pizza Hut is supposed to taste like.” There’s even an entire online comment thread titled “Why does Pizza Hut pizza now taste bad?” When that’s the conversation about your brand, something has gone very wrong.
One Redditor offered the only real advice: “Only look at the deals and never at their normal menu.” That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.
3. Little Caesars
Little Caesars used to have one job, and it did that job well: be the cheapest pizza available. The $5 Hot-N-Ready was an American institution. It wasn’t good pizza, but nobody expected it to be. You walked in, you walked out with a pizza, and it cost you less than a Chipotle burrito. That was the deal.
That deal is gone. In 2022, the chain raised its Hot-N-Ready price to $5.55 — its first increase in nearly 25 years. But the creep didn’t stop there. Customers are now reporting that their go-to pizzas are approaching $10. One Reddit user posted a screenshot showing the ExtraMostBestest pizza priced at $9.49 before tax and tip, alongside a Classic Pepperoni at $8.49. That’s almost double what people are used to paying.
And here’s where it falls apart: once Little Caesars isn’t the cheapest option, what’s the point? A 2021 poll by Mashed found that 27% of respondents chose Little Caesars as the worst pizza chain in America. It wins that poll pretty much every time someone runs it. One customer wrote: “It looks like pizza, says it’s pizza, but it tastes like cardboard.” Another claimed the chain “mixes their sauce with grease water.” When your only selling point was price and that advantage is disappearing, you’ve got a real problem. As one Redditor noted, Little Caesars now costs “just as much or more than Domino’s, Pizza Hut, and Papa John’s.” If you’re going to pay the same anyway, why settle for the worst pizza?
2. Papa Murphy’s
Papa Murphy’s is the largest take-and-bake pizza chain in the country, and the concept has always been a little weird if you think about it for more than ten seconds. You drive to a pizza place, buy an uncooked pizza, drive home, and bake it yourself. You’re doing part of their job for them. And you’re still paying $9 to $19 for a large.
The fundamental issue is that your home oven simply can’t do what a commercial pizza oven does. Restaurant pizza ovens reach temperatures that home appliances can’t touch, which is what gives you a properly done crust and bubbly, browned cheese. Papa Murphy’s is asking you to replicate restaurant results with equipment that wasn’t built for it — and then charging you close to what a competing chain charges for a fully cooked pie.
Reviewers have not been kind. One said that “the greatest pizza master in Italy could bake a Papa Murphy’s pizza in an imported brick oven, and the end result would still be meh.” The crust has been compared to frozen pizza and — my personal favorite — “roller rink pizza.” As one critic pointed out, Papa Murphy’s is the “ultimate gaslighting pizza chain: if you don’t like it, well, that’s on you — you baked it yourself.”
And pricing has gotten out of hand. One customer reported ordering a medium cowboy pizza, a medium garlic chicken, and monkey bread (which is just dough with seasonings), and the total came to $50 with a $4 tip. For take-and-bake. For pizza they had to cook themselves. “Doesn’t seem worth it for carryout and it’s certainly not a cheap option anymore,” that customer wrote. Hard to argue.
1. CiCi’s Pizza
CiCi’s Pizza is the chain that lands at the very bottom of almost every ranking, and it earns that spot honestly. The all-you-can-eat buffet model — with adult buffets at $8.99 and some days as low as $4.99 — means the chain has to keep ingredient costs as low as humanly possible. And you can taste exactly where those corners were cut.
The criticisms are brutal and consistent: flavorless sauce, off-putting cheese, and crust that one reviewer said makes comparing it to cardboard “an insult to amalgamated paper products.” Another described the cheese as simply “slimy.” The pizza comes out semi-warm from under heat lamps, which multiple food safety inspections have flagged as an issue. According to reports, CiCi’s has violated numerous health inspections in multiple states for keeping pizzas out too long at unsafe temperatures.
One review described CiCi’s as having “a thin crust that tastes like a saltine with the salt removed, topped with as little gloopy cheese, greasy meat chunks, and soggy veggies as possible.” The comparison that comes up most often? Bad school lunch pizza. Which, if you’ve ever been through the American public school system, you know is about the lowest bar imaginable.
CiCi’s was ranked as the absolute worst pizza chain on two out of five review sites in one major survey. The chain has survived for nearly four decades on one premise: unlimited bad pizza is still unlimited pizza. And for some people, that’s enough. But “enough” and “worth your money” are two very different things.
What You Should Do Instead
The common thread across all five of these chains is the same: prices went up, quality went down (or never existed in the first place), and customers noticed. The advice from actual pizza eaters is remarkably consistent — if you’re ordering from a chain, use the app, find the coupons, and never pay full menu price. The $6.99 deal at Domino’s, for example, came up repeatedly as one of the few chain options people still consider a fair trade.
But honestly? Check your local spots. That neighborhood pizza place that’s been around for twenty years is probably charging similar prices to what these chains are asking now, and they’re making better pizza. When a medium from Papa Murphy’s costs $50 for two pies you have to cook yourself, and a local joint will hand you a hot, fresh, properly-baked pizza for $18, the math isn’t complicated. Your wallet and your stomach will both thank you.
