11 Papa Johns Ordering Tips Worth Knowing

Going on a quest to find a new favorite pizza restaurant is always fun, but sometimes nostalgia strikes, and you need to chow down on a pie from a chain. Domino's, Pizza Hut, and even Little Caesars can hit the spot since each chain has its own strengths. But one of the most controversial pizza chains that people love to hate and hate to love is Papa Johns.

Despite the fact that there are countless shady things to discover about Papa Johns, no one can deny that the brand is iconic. From its classic pepperoncini in each box to the addictive garlic dipping sauce and fluffy crust, there's plenty to enjoy.

If you find yourself hankering for some Papa Johns pizza, there are lots of tips and tricks to optimize your order. Whether you want to save money, maximize your toppings, get access to freebies, or more, Papa Johns makes it easy to customize your order and explore your options. All prices are accurate as of writing, but may vary depending on the location. Read on to uncover 11 Papa Johns ordering tips that every fan should know.

Gone are the days of having a drawer filled with takeout menus and calling restaurants to place your order. While the option is certainly still available for the old-school folks, more and more businesses are making the push for online ordering. Not only does it make things easier for the restaurant staff, but customers can also enjoy some perks.

Papa Johns has its own loyalty program called Papa Rewards, where diners can get fun freebies. Every time you place an order, you earn Papa Dough. The math works as follows: Each dollar you spend is equivalent to one point, and 15 points turns into $2 that you can subtract from your order's total. Essentially, you earn $2 every time you spend $15. It may sound a little confusing, but the site and app make it easy to track your progress. You'll even get reminders about cashing in on your points in case you forget.

Papa Johns is also a part of the club of restaurants that offer birthday specials. Once your birthday rolls around, you'll have 14 days to redeem your free dessert. This gives you plenty of time to make the rounds and snag your freebies from your other favorite restaurants. Those who have an account with Papa Johns also get early access to new menu items and exclusive deals. It's worth taking a couple of minutes to create your account.

Papa Johns built its brand by always including one pepperoncini pepper and one Special Garlic Sauce in each box. While you can always count on these additions to your pizza boxes, nobody is stopping you from living large and inviting more dipping sauces to the party.

As of writing, Papa Johns sells all of its sauces for $0.99 per cup. In addition to the famous Special Garlic, you can try spicy garlic, ranch, blue cheese, buffalo, barbecue, cheese, and Original Pizza sauce, which is its marinara. Of course, there's also cream cheese icing, which is reserved for the dessert items, unless you're down for a strange sweet-and-salty pizza experiment.

While these other sauces are delicious, it's hard to pull fans away from their beloved Special Garlic Sauce. This sauce puts people in such a frenzy that they'll even buy limited-edition gallon jugs of it. Papa Johns planned another wacky marketing stunt by creating limited-edition Special Garlic Sauce bath bombs. This move was inspired by all of the fans who joked about wanting to bathe in the sauce. People who manage to get their hands on this product may be shunned by their friends, but they can rest assured that vampires will definitely steer clear of them as well.

If you're getting pizza from Papa Johns for dinner instead of cooking at home or ordering from an independent restaurant, chances are high that you don't want to be bothered. It may be tempting to select delivery on the website or app or even order through a third-party food delivery service, but take a moment to reflect on the fees.

When you order directly from Papa Johns, the delivery fee will cost around $5.49. You can't forget the tip as well. While this isn't outrageous every once in a while, it adds up if you're ordering Papa Johns on a regular basis. Third-party delivery apps are even more predatory. In fact, a Papa Johns employee went viral on TikTok for discussing Grubhub's delivery fees. After breaking down the bill for a Grubhub order, he revealed that the customer could've saved $7 by ordering directly from Papa Johns instead.

Considering how popular Papa Johns is nationwide, your local franchise shouldn't be too far from your house or workplace. If you can muster up the strength to fight a little bit of traffic, you could put those savings toward having leftovers in the fridge or treating yourself to a dessert. Papa Johns also sometimes rewards its customers who drive over to its stores by offering competitive carryout deals. For example, some stores offer a large one-topping carryout pizza for less than $10.

Papa Johns is always good about listing a wide variety of deals that can cater to its large audience. There are deals for single folks, families, and large parties, so you can count on this chain for all kinds of occasions. The deals go beyond pizza, so you can find options that let you order sides, drinks, desserts, and more at a much better price.

Let's look at the build-your-own pizza option to compare the prices. When you select this option from the main menu, a large cheese pizza without any toppings starts at $15.99. When you select the build-your-own pizza from the deals page, the price jumps down to $9.99.

At the time of writing, some other current deals include two medium two-topping pizzas for $6.99 each and $2 Tuesdays, which sees customers who buy a large or extra-large pizza receive another pizza of equal or lesser value for just $2. If, for some reason, you can't find a specific deal that speaks to your taste buds, you can always select the 20% off deal that gives you a flat discount on regular menu items. It's the simplest step that can save you a lot of money.

As it turns out, Papa Johns employees add less of each topping when the number of toppings increases. If you're committed to packing as much flavor into your pizza as possible, you need to navigate the menu carefully. An ex-Papa Johns employee posted some incredible hacks on Reddit. They revealed that the quantity of toppings decreases with each set of two. This means that ordering an odd number of toppings will help you get just a little bit more in each bite.

The sneakiest tip they shared is to order The Works if you plan on getting more than three toppings. This pizza comes with pepperoni, Canadian bacon, spicy Italian sausage, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and black olives. As you can see, it's stacked. However, if you aren't in the mood for this unique combination, the ex-employee said that you can swap out all of the ingredients.

What's the point of doing all of this? They said the price will come out cheaper than building your own pizza. At the time of writing, a large The Works pizza rings in at just over $20, which is a magnificent deal considering just how many toppings you get. You can have a lot of fun experimenting with the best pizza toppings of all time whenever you try a new combo.

There's nothing more satisfying than sinking your teeth into a pizza with extra cheese if you're a cheese lover. From the creamy mouthfeel to the fun cheese pull with each bite, everyone should indulge in some extra cheese every now and then. Most pizza joints deliver on the promise of adding extra cheese, but Papa Johns' extra cheese pizzas aren't all that they're cracked up to be.

On Reddit, one employee revealed that ordering extra cheese is a bit of a scam because the measurements aren't proportional to the pizza size. Adding extra cheese to a small pizza comes with an additional ¼ cup, whereas every other size only comes with an additional ½ cup. This means that someone who's ordering extra cheese on a medium pizza will get the same amount of cheese as they would on an extra-large pizza. Clearly, the folks who have larger pizzas won't notice much of a difference in cheesiness.

Cheese lovers don't have to swear off Papa Johns, though. Instead of getting ripped off with the extra cheese request, you should opt for the three-cheese pizzas. The ex-employee assures people that this is a fair deal.

Are you the kind of person who can guess which chain a pizza comes from based on the appearance alone? If you took one look inside a box of Papa Johns pizza and saw the pepperoncini, you'd know which chain made it. Love it or hate it, you have to admit that this single pepper has done a lot for Papa Johns' branding.

Employees know that the pepperoncini is polarizing, which is why lots of them are willing to help out the folks who toss it in the trash. After you place an order, you can try calling the store to speak with an employee about your distaste for the devilish pale green accoutrement. Some workers may not be in the mood to deal with your shenanigans, but most will be happy to hook you up with more sauce in lieu of the pepperoncini.

Unfortunately, Papa Johns doesn't give customers the chance to write any special instructions for their orders. If this were the case, then you could simply leave a note requesting the pepperoncini to be replaced with an extra Special Garlic Sauce. It may not be convenient, but you might believe that the phone call is worth the effort when Special Garlic Sauce is involved. Otherwise, you can do your best to turn a blind eye to the pepperoncini and order more sauce for $0.99 a pop.

Don't get us wrong, garlic knots ranked high on our ranking of popular Papa Johns menu items. You won't regret ordering this dish. However, if you love these flavors and wish you could get more, one Reddit user shared an insider tip: Opt for the garlic Parmesan breadsticks instead.

Why is this such a passionate plea? What customers may not know is that, inside the kitchens at Papa Johns, these two menu items are made with the same ingredients. The only difference is that the dough is twisted to form knots. The scandal is that ordering the garlic knots will leave you with significantly less product than if you ordered the garlic Parmesan breadsticks.

At the time of writing this article, 8 garlic knots cost around $5.99, while 10 garlic Parmesan breadsticks cost roughly $7.99. This small bump in price can give you access to more delicious garlicky carbs. Sure, this isn't the most drastic discovery that will make or break your budget for ordering out, but it's still nice to know if you order the garlic knots on a regular basis. Of course, if you love the appearance of the garlic knots and think that the serving size is perfect for your needs, don't let anyone yuck your yum.

This next ordering tip is something that goes way beyond Papa Johns. It's something that you should remember every single time you order a pizza. Whether you're trying to feed a crowd effectively or just spend your money more wisely, always order the largest pizza size that a restaurant offers. In order to understand the reason why, you'll have to get into math mode. Do you remember learning how to measure the area of a circle in school? The equation is multiplying pi (3.14) by the squared radius.

On Reddit, several pizza fans have weighed in on this math. One explained that an 8-inch pizza has 50.24 square inches, a 10-inch pizza has 78.5 square inches, and a 12-inch pizza has 113.04 square inches. As you can see, a small jump in price gets you significantly more pizza. As another user pointed out, your ratio of cheese and toppings to crust will be much better with larger pizzas.

Papa Johns currently lets customers upgrade from a large to an extra-large pizza for roughly $2.25. In November 2025, Papa Johns also announced the release of The Grand Papa, which is cut into eight slices but spans a whopping 18 inches in diameter. It's branded as an XXL pizza.

The sad truth is that pizzas can only hold so many toppings before they collapse. If you want to avoid a sad, flaccid slice, Reddit users suggest changing the bake setting on your Papa Johns order from normal to well done.

Not only will this help the dough stay strong under the weight of the toppings, but it will also help each topping cook through better. For example, if you have a bunch of raw veggies mixed with meats, the veggies may come out crunchy since they didn't have enough space to cook with a normal bake time.

It's understandable if you're on the fence about changing the bake setting since burnt pizza will always be an enraging discovery. However, on Reddit, someone asked employees to chime in on their procedures for cooking well-done pizzas. Surprisingly, each store seems to have its own techniques. Overall, though, the consensus is that whatever technique they use only adds about two or three minutes to the bake time. This shouldn't be enough to cause any disasters. It will just give your pizza a little extra time to come together beautifully.

You may be surprised to learn that there are plenty of Papa Johns menu items that staff avoid. It's always fascinating to get a peek behind the curtain and learn about why employees favor certain menu items over others.

Papa Johns fans were devastated when the company retired its beloved Chicken Poppers. To replace this fan favorite, the brand introduced Boneless Wings. This may seem innocent enough, but it was immediately clear to both employees and customers that there was a huge drop in quality to cut costs. Many employees can't stand the stench of the raw wings, comparing the smell to cat food. Another employee shared that their store was inundated with complaints the same day they started selling the Boneless Wings.

Another dish that employees hate is the Papa Bowls. Not only do the bowls look like slop, but the employees say that you barely get any food for the price of the dish. It's still an option for folks avoiding gluten, but it's certainly not among the best gluten-free menu items you can get at fast food restaurants.