11 Frozen Thin Crust Pizzas, Ranked Worst To Best

As inflation affects everything from gas to groceries, affordable meals are increasing in popularity. Frozen pizza is a great solution. It's less expensive than restaurant-made versions, and if you keep one in the freezer, it's at the ready for a quick meal on busy weeknights.

Thin-crust pizzas, in particular, are popular because they help the sauce, cheese, and toppings to really stand in the spotlight. They provide a good balance of crispiness and chewiness, and usually cook at higher temperatures, so they heat up more quickly. Naturally, though, some must be better than others. To help cut down some of the legwork as you set your sights on the freezer aisle, I sampled a wide array of store-bought frozen thin crust pizzas and ranked them worst to best.

To keep the comparisons fair and simple, as well as to control for variation as much as possible, I stuck with only pizzas whose labels stated they had thin crusts, as well as the most popular topping of them all, pepperoni. For help in eating and ranking these pizzas, I enlisted my husband and teenage daughter, both pizza fans (who are also used to being roped in to help with my food reviews). Together, we ranked them — and our top three choices surprised us all.

Perhaps it's fitting that my least favorite pizza of those I tried was also the least expensive — and I'm not alone. In fact, the brand is already responsible for one frozen pizza we'd never buy again. This Totino's pizza, I'm sorry to say, tasted exactly like what you'd expect a $2.87 frozen pizza to taste like. The price also is likely driven by the size of the pizza; at 11.64 ounces, it was smaller than all the others. It's also square, making it visually distinctive.

The moment I took my first bite, my mouth said "frozen pizza." It had a distinctly processed flavor. The sauce tasted acidic, with what my daughter termed a "liquidy" texture, and the cheese seemed stale to me. The coverage of cheese, however, was good when compared to some of the others we tried; the makers did not skimp on cheese quantity, which was a nice feature. The crust had a bit of chew and was crispy in the right places. It wasn't floppy, which was helped somewhat by the shape, and it was thick enough to feel substantial. The pepperoni wasn't bad, just not terribly flavorful. The label's small-print addition of "and pepperoni pizza topping" was a tip-off that perhaps the pepperoni wasn't 100% meat.

In general, the flavor simply wasn't what you want from a pizza. In fact, I detected a bit of an aftertaste. Our family agreed that it felt like a kid's pizza. Bottom line, with this Totino's pizza, you get what you pay for.

Research in a 2026 article published in Organic Nature shows that when consumers see products labeled as "organic," they feel increased trust in the product, are more willing to pay higher prices, and equate it with being healthy. I admit, I did the same in this case. I had high expectations for this pizza, believing that the "organic" label would translate to good quality. I was disappointed to find it lacking, particularly for the price (which, at $6.99, was higher than some others that tasted much better).

From the very first bite, the pizza had a funky taste to me, a bit like cardboard, and the sauce in particular was odd. It was spread very thin so as to have no flavor — no spice, no tomato tang. The pizza had two types of pepperoni, both diced and sliced, which I found encouraging. But the sliced pepperoni actually cooked up to be a lot darker than any other pepperoni I've seen — not burned, just an unnaturally dark meat. My daughter found the pizza exceptionally oily. And while my husband liked it more than we did — due to its plentiful amount of cheese and crispy, pastry-tasting crust (which I admit was quite good) — we found the pizza unremarkable overall.

Walmart's Great Value brand tends to be reliable, and its Thin Crust Pepperoni Pizza is an affordable, decent frozen pizza. Upon taking it out of the box, I was impressed to see flecks of herbs — oregano and basil, based on the list of ingredients. Then I put it in a 425 F oven directly on the center rack, as instructed. The directions say it should back for 12-14 minutes, but by 6 minutes, I noticed the bottom and edges of the crust were already starting to burn, while the cheese wasn't even fully melted yet. Take note, if you make this one at home — keep a close eye on it. Unfortunately, the burned flavor of the crust affected the taste and made it far too crunchy for my liking.

The cheese was somewhat dry, but there was a good amount of it, and the herbs did help the overall flavor. We all liked the sauce, though I personally would have liked to have more of it, and pepperoni was quite good — thickly cut with a nice amount of heat. At $4.46, this pizza is a pretty good value for the money, but only if you can be sure to keep the crust from burning. In fact, while the directions for all these frozen pizzas call for cooking directly on the center rack, this one might benefit from being on a baking sheet, at least for a portion of the cooking time.

This is one of the lesser-known frozen pizza brands out there. Of all the pizzas we tried, this Newman's Own pizza was the most divisive. It was one of my least favorites, but my husband and daughter found it much more appetizing, which is how it landed more toward the middle of my ranking. When I took it out of the box, which claimed it contained whole milk mozzarella, and I saw the thickly grated cheese on top, I had high hopes. And I will say that the cheese tasted quite good — there just wasn't enough of it.

My impression of this pizza overall was, simply, doughiness. The instructions had called for baking at 425 F for 10 to 12 minutes, and I went to 12, but still found it to be underdone. This was the only pizza in the entire ranking that wasn't at all crispy. However, I did like the flavor of the crust, which was light and buttery. The pizza was also quite saucy (which I like on a pizza), containing a nice tomato tang, and the pepperoni was substantial with a good amount of spice. But overall, at $7.99 for a 15-ounce pizza, I found it to be a bit too pricey for the quality we received.

Home Run Inn is one of the absolute best frozen pizzas according to customers. It gets great reviews from customers online, many of whom say the crust is crispy and buttery, and they like its thick layer of cheese. I was excited to try this Chicago pizzeria brand, which distinguishes itself from others by being made with Chicago's own tavern-style thin crust, which is a cracker crust, instead of deep dish. The price of $10.99 (I got it for $7.99 with my shopper's loyalty card) conveyed quality as well.

The cheese definitely did not disappoint. In fact, it had the most cheese of the all the pizzas we tried; the pizza is parbaked, then frozen, so it comes out of the box with a thick, even layer of cheese reaching all the way to the edges, and the flavor is pizzeria quality, not like other frozen pizzas.

However, we found the crust a bit underdone in the center, even after following the baking directions to the letter, resulting in a bit of flop toward the middle and a doughiness that wasn't great. It tasted nice and buttery, however. What I really didn't like was the pepperoni, which struck me as gamey; it had a very odd flavor that turned me off. The sauce, too, had an odd, acidic taste. In all, it's clear that this is a higher quality frozen pizza, and as the biggest pizza on my list (27 ounces), it's a solid buy. But we didn't enjoy it as much as we'd expected.

I confess, I had gotten used to dismissing Red Baron pizza out of hand, making it the butt of jokes about cardboard-tasting, freezer-burned pizzas. But I've been proven wrong. Red Baron has stepped up its game and offers a downright respectable frozen thin-crust pizza, especially for the low price of just $4.82.

This pizza provided a nicely crisp thin crust. It overcooked in no time, though, so you'll need to keep a close eye on it in the oven. By the time we pulled it out, the edges had developed a crumbly texture. One section of the edge actually broke off when I laid it on a cutting board.

The pepperoni had a nice kick that we all appreciated, and it boasted the perfect amount of sauce, which had a distinctly herbaceous flavor thanks to the oregano in it. We found the cheese somewhat dry, and we'd have liked to have more of it. In the end, our consensus was that this pizza felt elevated above the stereotypical frozen pizza, so I stand corrected from my previous stance.

Frankly, the fact that Jack's Original Thin Crust Pepperoni frozen pizza was sold in a simple plastic shrink wrap rather than a box and priced at $3.86 had me worried. But having seen some positive customer reviews online, I hoped to be pleasantly surprised ... and I was. Reviews indicated that it was a nostalgic favorite for many, and my husband and I agreed its flavor evoked memories right away.

The crust was crispy and light, almost cracker-like, which ensured that it firmly held onto the toppings without any floppiness at all. The sauce had a touch of sweetness and plenty of tomato flavor. As for the cheese, there was great coverage, reaching all the way to the edge. While the pepperoni was somewhat bland, it had a nice amount of oil pooling, which I always love in a pizzeria pizza. In fact, I liked this one enough to go back for seconds, which is saying a lot for a pizza that's so inexpensive. Altogether, it offers great value for the money.

California Pizza Kitchen is a brand I've always enjoyed, both in its restaurants and in my grocery store freezer section. It's one of the popular frozen pizza brands that use high-quality ingredients. But living in a town where there's no restaurant location and not having had a frozen pizza in quite a while, I didn't know whether the quality would hold up to my memories. I'm happy to say that it did. While it wasn't in my top three in this ranking, it earned high marks.

My first indication of good quality standards was the label indicating mozzarella, fontina, and hickory-smoked gouda cheeses, not to mention basil and uncured pepperoni. The box also boasts a "Real Ingredient Promise" that it uses 100% real cheese, with no artificial flavors and no preservatives in the crust. Priced at $8.99, it's more expensive than most of the pizzas on this list, which some might say is an indicator of quality.

While we really enjoyed the cheese, with the gouda in particular contributing to a uniquely pleasant smoky flavor, there wasn't enough sauce for our liking. We did really like the heat in the pepperoni, which felt like restaurant quality. All that said, the price tag contributed to my feeling of being shortchanged, especially since this was the second-smallest pizza at 12.9 ounces. It felt a little skimpy, and I'm not sure the thin crust is substantial enough to support the heavy flavors of the meat and cheese.

DiGiorno's famous advertising claim that you might get it confused with delivery pizza might hold up for its rising crust varieties, but the thin-crust versions don't quite hit that height. The crust is okay, not fantastic. Nonetheless, this Nestlé-owned major pizza brand was an undisputed top-three choice, just how far frozen pizzas have come in the last couple of decades.

I'm a huge fan of New York-style pizza, with its typical saltiness and pooled oil that comes from great pepperoni and plenty of cheese, and this pizza definitely had both. The sauce is quite tasty, but this is one pizza where I felt there might actually be too much sauce, whereas most of the others didn't have enough. Because of that, this pizza is definitely not dry, and biting into it feels satisfying in its texture, chew, and moisture. It didn't flop over when we picked up our slices, thanks to a crisp, flavorful crust, but the crust might also be a bit too tough; it burned a bit too easily and I had to move it to a cookie sheet a few minutes before it was done, so keep a close watch on yours as it bakes. In all, at $5.96, this pizza offers a great value, in big part thanks to how thoroughly it's topped.

Tombstone has many loyal fans. Its discontinued line of individual deep-dish, microwaveable frozen pizzas are a nostalgic pizza choice that customers miss dearly. Before selecting pizzas to taste and rank, I read customer reviews saying Tombstone was their all-time favorite, sharing memories of late nights in college and kids' birthday parties. I thought nostalgia might be the entire appeal of Tombstone. After all, it was simply shrink-wrapped in plastic (no box) and placed at the bottom of my grocery store's freezer. It turns out I was very wrong. This is a more-than-respectable frozen pizza regardless of price, but it doesn't hurt that this was also one of the cheapest I found, priced at $4.99 for a hefty 19.3 ounces (the second-biggest pizza on my list).

The crust was a unanimous hit, crispy but a bit thicker than many of the others; it had heft, but with enough chewiness and give to feel satisfying and fresh. It certainly held up to lots of great sauce coverage, which itself had a wonderfully sweet, fresh flavor. The cheese melted thoroughly, had a slightly smoky taste, and went all the way to the edge, but it actually could have used more.

As this pizza was baking, I peeked into the oven at halfway and was dismayed — it didn't look like much. It also could use a bit more spice. But we all agreed that this one felt like a restaurant quality pizza upon actually tasting it. I'm pleased to report that this oldie is still a goodie.

From the moment we bit into this Screamin' Sicilian pizza, we knew it was our favorite. It stood apart instantly as a pizzeria-level entry. And that surprised me considering the brand's Bessie's Revenge (on a standard wood-fired medium crust) fared somewhat poorly in our ranking of non-thin-crust frozen pizzas.

The flavor of this pizza "screams" freshness, from its secret-recipe tomato sauce — which is sweet and has a slight kick of heat — to the plentiful mozzarella, which melts to thoroughly cover the pizza all the way to the edges. This pizza also brings more pepperoni than any of the others — the entire surface was covered with it, the slices of meat even overlapping in some spots. The crust cooks up nice and crispy to hold up all those toppings, and the oiliness from the meat moistens it up, so it's not at all dry. Our whole family agreed this one had the best ratio of toppings to crust, and the flavor of that cracker-like crust was quite nice on its own. At $6.87 for 18.4 ounces, this thin-crust option delivers high quality, taste, and feel, making it an excellent value for the price and the clear No. 1 frozen thin crust option.

To select the pizzas for this ranking, I only included pizzas that specifically stated they had thin crusts somewhere on the packaging. All had to be pepperoni, to maintain consistency as we tasted.

Then we developed a scoring rubric to evaluate the pizzas for crust flavor and texture; cheese flavor, quantity, and consistency; sauce flavor and amount; quality and amount of pepperoni; overall flop factor (did the pizza hold up its toppings and stay crispy, or was it mushy or doughy?); and overall value for price. We split up the tastings over three evenings, scoring and adding comments as we went. Finally, we discussed our findings to achieve consensus to create this final ranking.