Cheapest fast food in Canada, August 2026

The cheapest thing you can buy at any of these five chains is a Tim Hortons dipping sauce at $0.25. The cheapest thing that's actually food is a Tim Hortons Timbit at $0.35. The cheapest full meal, sandwich, fries, and a drink, is Burger King's small combo at $5.69.

What this compares, and what it doesn't

I pulled every price in this piece from five menu files I built by hand: McDonald's (a single Toronto location), Burger King, Harvey's, Tim Hortons, and Pizza 73 (Alberta locations). Three of those five carry calorie data: McDonald's and Harvey's. Burger King's file, despite selling itself as the natural third chain for this kind of comparison, has no calorie column at all, so it's out of the calorie math too. I didn't estimate calories for any item. If a number isn't in the source file, it isn't in this piece.

The McDonald's file doesn't say whether its prices come from the counter or an app, so treat that column as unlabelled rather than assuming it's counter pricing. Burger King, Harvey's, and Tim Hortons don't name a location, while the McDonald's file is one Toronto restaurant and Pizza 73's is Alberta pricing. Regional variation is real and I can't correct for it here. I'm not going to rank these five chains against each other overall. That's not a claim five menu snapshots can support. What I can support is naming the cheapest item, the cheapest meal, and the cheapest calories, with the receipts underneath each one.

The cheapest single item, chain by chain

A sauce packet isn't a meal, so I split this into two questions: the cheapest thing on the menu at all, and the cheapest thing that's actually food.

The cheapest single item, chain by chain

Chain	Cheapest item, any category	Price	Cheapest food item	Price
Tim Hortons	Any of eight dipping sauces	$0.25	Single Timbit	$0.35
Burger King	BBQ, Buffalo, Honey Mustard, Ranch, or Sweet and Sour sauce	$0.23	Apple Turnover	$1.79
Harvey's	Any of seven extra dipping sauces	$0.40	Apple Pie or Birthday Pie (tie)	$1.89
McDonald's	Nugget, Spicy Habanero, or Mayo-style sauce packet (tie)	$0.49	Apple slices, Berry McPops, White Chocolate McPops, or Hazelnut and Cocoa McPops (four way tie)	$1.19
Pizza 73	Dipping sauce, or extra caramel dip (tie)	$1.39	Two-Bite Brownies, 10 pieces	$6.79

Two things stand out. Burger King's sauces are the cheapest individual line item on any of the five menus at $0.23, but Tim Hortons wins the food category and the overall category, since its dipping sauces are cheaper than Burger King's and its Timbit at $0.35 beats every other chain's cheapest food item by a wide margin. Pizza 73 sits at the other end: its cheapest actual food, a box of ten brownies at $6.79, costs more than McDonald's or Burger King's cheapest complete meal, covered next. Pizza 73 doesn't really sell small items. Everything on that menu is built to be split.

The cheapest real meal, chain by chain

I'm defining a meal as something filling enough to eat on its own: a sandwich or equivalent protein item, plus a side, plus a drink, the three part combo Canadians already call a combo. Where a chain's file prices that as one bundle, I used the bundle. Where it doesn't, I built the cheapest version from three separate line items and show the addition. You're free to disagree with where I drew the line; the components are all listed so you can swap in your own.

The cheapest real meal, chain by chain

Chain	Meal	Components	Price
Burger King	Cheeseburger small combo (tied with Bacon Cheeseburger, Chicken Jr., and Spicy Chicken Jr. small combos)	Sandwich, small fries, small drink	$5.69
McDonald's	McDouble McValue Meal (tied with the Double Hamburger Extra Value Meal and Junior Chicken McValue Meal)	Sandwich, fries, drink	$6.69
Tim Hortons	Breakfast Combo	Sandwich, hashbrown, coffee	$6.99
Harvey's	Jr. Burger plus Regular Fries plus Tea, built from three items since no combo exists at this price point	Burger, fries, drink	$8.47
Pizza 73	Solo Deal, small Two-Topper or Ultimate Pepperoni pizza plus one pop (tie)	Whole small pizza, pop	$17.49

Burger King's small combo, at $5.69, is the cheapest complete meal across all five files, four different sandwiches tied for it. Harvey's has no adult combo priced under $9, so the $8.47 line above is mine: Jr. Burger $2.79, Regular Fries $3.89, and a Tea at $1.79, which together clock in cheaper than Harvey's own Jr. Burger Kids Meal at $4.99 once you account for the fact that the kids meal is a smaller portion aimed at children rather than a filling adult meal. Pizza 73 doesn't do single portions cheaply. Its Solo Deal (a whole small pizza plus a pop) is built for one person but costs more than three times Burger King's small combo.

Cost per calorie: McDonald's and Harvey's, ranked

This is where the multi-chain data actually earns its keep. Only McDonald's and Harvey's list calories in the files I have. I checked the brief assumption that Burger King's file also carries calorie data, and it doesn't: there's no calorie column anywhere in that menu. So this section covers two chains, not three, and I'm not going to estimate the third. Tim Hortons and Pizza 73 are excluded for the same reason: no calorie column, no number.

Ranked by cost per calorie, cheapest first, using only items with a single fixed calorie count rather than a range:

At the other end, the worst calorie value on either menu:

The Harvey's Side Salad is the worst calorie value in either file by a wide margin, nearly 30 times worse than the best value item on the same menu, and it sits inside a section literally called Harv's Value Picks. I flag it twice in this piece because the label is the whole problem: everything else in that section, fries, onion rings, Frings, the Jr. Burger tiers, prices out at 0.72 to 1.7 cents per calorie, in line with the rest of the menu. The Side Salad doesn't belong there on a calorie basis, even if it's the right call for someone counting calories rather than cents. One more note on the data itself: Harvey's file lists Crispy Chicken Salad twice with two different calorie counts, 460 in the Chicken section and 390 under Other Options, at the same $9.99 price. I used the lower, more conservative figure above and I'm flagging the mismatch rather than picking silently.

The combo trap

Two chains, two very different ways of pricing the walk from a sandwich to a full combo.

At McDonald's, turning a breakfast sandwich into an Extra Value Meal is cheap. The Egg McMuffin goes from $5.99 to $8.89, a $2.90 step, and the Bacon 'N Egg McMuffin does the same, $5.99 to $8.89, also $2.90. Turning a lunch sandwich into an Extra Value Meal costs far more. The Big Mac goes from $8.39 to $14.79, a $6.40 step, and the McChicken goes from $8.39 to $14.59, a $6.20 step. Same chain, same idea (add fries and a drink), and the lunch upcharge is more than double the breakfast one.

Here's why that matters in practice. World Famous Fries cost $2.99 and a Coca-Cola costs $1.69, $4.68 together if you bought them separately. The breakfast EVM's $2.90 step is $1.78 cheaper than buying fries and a drink on their own, a genuine discount for choosing the combo. The lunch EVM's $6.20 to $6.40 step costs $1.52 to $1.72 more than buying the same fries and drink separately. At breakfast, McDonald's Extra Value Meal earns its name. At lunch, on this file's numbers, it's cheaper to order the sandwich, the fries, and the drink as three separate items than to order the meal that bundles them.

Burger King runs the opposite pattern at breakfast. Of the 20 breakfast items priced across all four combo tiers (Regular, Small, Medium, Large), 13 follow the exact same step: $1.50 to enter the small combo, then $1.00 to move to medium, then another $1.00 to reach large. The Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich, for instance, runs $4.29, $5.79, $6.79, $7.79, a clean $1.50/$1.00/$1.00 ladder, and the same ladder shows up on the Sausage Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich, the Bacon Egg and Cheese Croissan'wich, both English Muffin sandwiches, Pancakes, and both French Toast Sticks orders. It's the most predictable pricing structure anywhere in these five files. Burger King's own lunch and dinner combos don't follow that pattern. Moving a Whopper from sandwich to medium combo costs $5.20, and a Hamburger jumps $6.10 to reach its medium combo, both far closer to McDonald's lunch jump than to Burger King's own breakfast one. The lesson across both chains is the same: the fries-and-drink upcharge depends heavily on what time of day you're ordering, and not only on which chain you're at.

Value menus examined

Four of the five chains brand a section of their menu as a deal, a value pick, or a combo built to save you money. I checked whether each one actually does.

Burger King's Value Menu section holds up at the entry tier and stalls after that. The Cheeseburger Small Combo at $5.69 beats buying the cheeseburger, small fries, and a small drink separately by $1.78. Move up to the medium or large combo, from the main Flame-Grilled Burgers table rather than the Value Menu section, and the saving shrinks to $0.08, both from a la carte pricing of $9.17 and $10.07 against combo prices of $9.09 and $9.99. The small combo is a real discount. The medium and large combos are close to a wash.

Pizza 73's Everyday Deal (two small Two-Topper pizzas for $28.49) saves $1.49 against buying two small Two-Toppers separately at $14.99 each, a modest but genuine discount for a household order. Its Solo Deal doesn't hold up the same way: a small Two-Topper pizza plus one pop costs $17.49 as the deal, but the same pizza at $14.99 plus a can of pop at $2.19 adds up to $17.18 bought separately, meaning the "deal" costs $0.31 more than ordering the two items on their own.

Harvey's Value Picks section is the one named directly for this kind of scrutiny, and it mostly delivers: the Jr. Burger tiers, the fries, and the onion rings all price in a tight, reasonable band per calorie. The exception is the Side Salad, covered above, the worst calorie value on either calorie-carrying menu, sitting inside the section built to be the cheap one.

Tim Hortons doesn't need the same scrutiny here, since its named Combos and Value Meals section prices bundles that are cheaper than buying the pieces apart in every case I checked, and its meal-level pricing is covered in the cheapest meal table above.

FAQ

What is the cheapest single item at any Canadian fast food chain?

A Tim Hortons dipping sauce at $0.25. If you want the cheapest item that's actually food rather than a condiment, that's a single Tim Hortons Timbit at $0.35.

What is the cheapest full meal at a Canadian fast food chain?

Burger King's small combo, sandwich, small fries, and small drink, at $5.69. Four sandwiches (Cheeseburger, Bacon Cheeseburger, Chicken Jr., and Spicy Chicken Jr.) share that price.

Which fast food items have the best cost per calorie in Canada?

Among the chains that list calories, McDonald's Apple and Peach Pie is the best value at $2.39 for 560 calories, 0.43 cents per calorie. Harvey's Large SKOR Shake is close behind at 0.51 cents per calorie.

Why aren't Tim Hortons, Pizza 73, and Burger King in the calorie comparison?

None of those three menu files carry a calorie column. Only McDonald's and Harvey's do. I checked Burger King's file specifically, since it's commonly grouped with the other two, and confirmed it has no calorie data anywhere.

Is McDonald's Extra Value Meal actually a better deal?

At breakfast, yes: the upcharge to add fries and a drink is $1.78 cheaper than buying those two items separately. At lunch, no: the Big Mac and McChicken Extra Value Meals cost $1.52 to $1.72 more than ordering the sandwich, fries, and drink as three separate items.

Does Harvey's Value Picks menu actually save money?

Mostly. The Jr. Burger tiers, fries, and onion rings price reasonably per calorie, but the Side Salad in that same section is the single worst calorie value in either calorie-carrying file, at 12.83 cents per calorie.

Is Burger King's breakfast combo pricing more predictable than McDonald's?

Yes. Thirteen of Burger King's 20 breakfast items follow an identical $1.50 step into the small combo, then $1.00 and $1.00 to upsize. McDonald's breakfast Extra Value Meal steps range from $2.70 to $3.80 depending on the sandwich.

Do these prices apply everywhere in Canada?

No. The McDonald's prices come from one Toronto restaurant, Pizza 73's from Alberta locations, and Burger King, Harvey's, and Tim Hortons don't name a location in the source data I used. Treat every number here as a snapshot, not a national guarantee.

Methodology

Every price in this piece traces to one of five files: mcdonalds-toronto-menu.md (one Toronto restaurant, includes calories, doesn't declare whether pricing is counter or app), Burger King.md (no location named, no calorie data), Harveys.md (no location named, includes calories), Tim Hortons.md (no location named, no calorie data), and Pizza 73.md (Alberta locations, no calorie data). Arithmetic built on top of those prices, combo comparisons, per calorie math, and constructed meals, is shown with its components rather than stated as a bare figure. Menu prices in Canada exclude tax; Ontario adds 13% HST and Alberta adds 5% GST, neither of which is reflected in any number above.

Froqel is an independent guide and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of the chains named here. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.