While most fast food chains proudly display upfront pricing for customized orders in their apps, the pizza industry stubbornly lags behind, creating a frustrating guessing game for customers eager to optimize their cheesy cravings and budgets.

Ordering fast food online has become a breeze. You tap, you customize, you see the price, you confirm. Easy peasy. Except when it comes to pizza. For some bizarre reason, the digital realm of pepperoni and mushrooms operates under a shroud of pricing secrecy. You meticulously craft your perfect pie, adding toppings, choosing crusts, maybe even throwing in some cheesy bread, only to be hit with the grand total at the very end. It’s like a culinary cliffhanger, and frankly, it’s time for it to stop.

My little rant above pretty much sums up my frustration. Think about it: every other fast-food joint has figured this out. I can meticulously build a Frankensteinian burrito at Taco Bell, swapping ingredients and adding extra guac, and the app diligently updates the price in real-time. I can tweak my Dave’s Single at Wendy’s with extra cheese and no pickles, and the cost is right there, no surprises. So why, oh why, does ordering a pizza online feel like a financial guessing game until the final reveal?

The irony is that pizza chains were actually pioneers in the online ordering space.

Domino’s app, back in its day, was revolutionary. The ability to track your pizza’s journey from oven to doorstep was genuinely groundbreaking. Their early adoption of sophisticated customization options likely led to the initial justification for withholding specific pricing. Regional menu variations and the sheer number of possible topping combinations could have genuinely made upfront pricing a logistical nightmare. “It’s just too complicated!” they probably argued.

But the world has moved on. The digital landscape is now littered with apps that handle complex customization and regional pricing with aplomb. The “too complicated” excuse simply doesn’t hold water anymore. If Taco Bell can tell me the exact cost of my seven-layer, nacho cheese-infused, steak and potato burrito with extra sour cream in real-time, surely Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s can manage to display the price of a large pepperoni with mushrooms and extra cheese before I’ve committed to the entire order.

This lack of transparency isn’t just a minor inconvenience; it actively hinders the customer experience. It makes it incredibly difficult to optimize for price. Maybe I’m on a budget tonight and want to see if adding those extra anchovies pushes me over my limit. Maybe I’m comparing deals between different chains and want a quick, at-a-glance understanding of the base price before diving into customization. The current system forces us to invest time and effort in building a complete order just to see the damage to our wallets.

I’m calling it now: the first major pizza chain to roll out an app with truly transparent, upfront pricing is going to be a winner. In a world where instant information is king, the ability to see exactly how much your customized pizza will cost before you hit that final “order” button will be a significant competitive advantage. Customers are tired of the pricing puzzle. They crave clarity and control. The chain that delivers on this simple expectation is poised to enjoy a healthy surge in online orders as consumers flock to the more transparent and user-friendly experience.

The other pizza giants will eventually catch up, they always do. But the early bird gets the worm (or in this case, the extra online orders). It’s time for the pizza industry to step out of the pricing shadows and join the rest of the fast-food world in the glorious sunshine of upfront cost disclosure. Our stomachs, and our wallets, will thank them for it.