--- title: Subway Is Killing the $5 Footlong — Again. Here's Why description: The Subway $5 footlong deal disappeared in 2016, and was brought back in early 2018. Now Subway is killing the $5 footlong again. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2018-09-10T13:46:11.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T10:54:39.000Z' section: Business tags: - deals - Fast Food word_count: 334 canonical: https://money.com/subway-5-footlong-deal/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![A member of staff preparing a footlong 'sub'.](https://img.money.com/2018/09/subway-5-footlong-498869517.jpg) *A Subway employee preparing a footlong sandwich.* Subway keeps killing its best sandwich deal. The Subway $5 footlong — a 12-inch sandwich for $5, promoted with an [ad jingle](https://www.inverse.com/article/11117-the-five-dollar-footlong-subway-song-was-the-greatest-jingle-of-our-time) you can't get out of your head — was hugely popular with customers for a decade before the fast food giant [raised the price by $1](http://fortune.com/2016/02/03/subway-5-footlong/) in 2016. Subway [brought back the $5 footlong](https://money.com/subway-5-dollar-footlong-deal-return/) in early 2018, but now there's a good chance it'll be disappearing yet again from your local Subway shop. Subway CEO Trevor Haynes told [*USA Today*](https://www.usatoday.com/story/09/10/subway-5-footlong-going-away-but-paninis-may-their-way-exclusive/1206727002/) that starting this month, each Subway franchise can decide whether or not it wants to have any $5 footlong deals. And there's good reason to believe that many franchises will quickly eliminate their $5 footlong offers: After all, Subway killed the deal the first time after years of franchises complaining that the price point was too low for them to make a profit. Fast food restaurants have a love-hate relationship with low-price deals like the $5 footlong and the [McDonald's dollar menu](https://money.com/mcdonalds-dollar-menu-2018/). They love these promotions because they drive customer traffic into locations, yet they hate how little they generate in profits. The $5 footlong became a huge hit for Subway restaurants around 2008-2009, during the heart of the financial collapse and the great recession, when consumers were extra eager for good values. Within a few years, however, many franchisees were grumbling that the $5 deal was hurting their business. What's more, after years of rapid expansion, Subway's growth as gone into reverse. Subway experienced a net [loss of 350 U.S. locations](https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/25/news/companies/subway-closing/index.html) in 2016, and it closed hundreds of restaurants in 2017 and 2018 as well. Soon, it'll be up to each Subway restaurant to decide if it wants to offer a $5 footlong. Some locations will have the deal — perhaps for a limited number of sandwich selections, and only on select days of the week. Other Subways will decide to launch different kinds of specials, like the $3.99 six-inch sub deal that's currently available at Subway locations in San Francisco. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/subway-5-footlong-deal/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Franchise", "item": "https://money.com/franchise/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Subway Is Killing the $5 Footlong — Again. 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