# Head-to-heads

A buyer almost never asks about one brand. They arrive holding two packets,
or they hold one packet and a rumour about a second concept somebody mentioned
at a trade show. The pages below exist for that conversation: two brands, the
same fields, side by side, with the source year printed against every number.

Most of these pages show where two disclosure documents differ. The
[Döner Haus versus GDK](/compare/doner-haus-vs-german-doner-kebab/) pair is
the one where format, fees, Item 19 and the franchisor's own accounts all
point the same way: a compact imbiss against a five-shop restaurant from a US
company that has never covered its own costs.

## Why these pairs

Pairs are chosen when a buyer could plausibly be weighing both brands in a
single conversation, which happens for three reasons.

**Same aisle.** Two brands selling a comparable meal to a comparable customer:
Halal Guys against Shah's Halal, Crave against Dog Haus, 375° Chicken 'N Fries
against Mad for Chicken. Here the interesting differences are usually not the
food but the fee stack, the disclosed footprint and how much of the system the
franchisor still owns.

**Same money, different food.** Two brands whose Item 7 ranges overlap enough
that a buyer with a fixed budget is genuinely choosing between them. A
sandwich shop and a halal platter counter are not competitors on the street and
are absolutely competitors for one person's capital.

**Same decision, different maturity.** A legacy system with thousands of
franchise-years behind it against a young one still building its first
territories. Wienerschnitzel against Capriotti's reads differently from Crave
against Dog Haus, and both readings matter more than either brand's marketing.

## How to read one of these pages

Start at the source line at the bottom of the table, not the top. Two filings
from different years are two disclosure moments, and a unit count from 2023
sits next to a 2026 count without either being wrong. Then read the ongoing
fee as a stack — royalty plus every advertising contribution the document
requires — because a 5% royalty with a 3% brand fund costs more every week
than a 6% royalty with nothing attached.

After that, treat the Item 7 range as a filing, not a budget. The range
describes the formats the franchisor chose to disclose in a particular year;
the buyer's project is one site with one landlord, one contractor and one
equipment quote. Where a filing makes no Item 19 representation, that is a
fact about the document. No comparison here fills the gap with an estimate.

The [ranking views](/by-category/) are the other way into the same filings, and
[how to use this directory](/how-consultants-use-this/) is the reading order.
If a pair you need is missing, the fields on each brand's own card support
the same comparison by hand.

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