BurgerFi vs Papa Murphy's

Papa Murphy’s wins on the two dimensions that matter most for a software vendor: TAM and terrain. Its 965 franchised units dwarf BurgerFi’s 66, giving you a broad field for outbound sales. Critically, Papa Murphy’s uses an approved-supplier procurement model—franchisees choose their own POS, scheduling, and marketing tools from a list—so you can sell directly to nearly a thousand independent operators. BurgerFi’s franchisor-controlled model funnels all technology decisions through a single corporate gatekeeper, creating a binary, high-risk sales cycle where one “no” locks you out of the entire 66-unit pool. For a vendor building a repeatable motion, open terrain with scale beats a closed, tiny target every time.

The tradeoff is budget per location. BurgerFi’s $1.26M AUV points to operators with deeper pockets than a typical Papa Murphy’s unit (where lower investment ranges and a 5% royalty imply thinner margins). A higher-revenue store can stomach a pricier software stack and faster add-on adoption. But that per-unit advantage collapses under unit economics: even if BurgerFi franchisees spend 2x more, the total addressable contract value across Papa Murphy’s system is still several times larger. And BurgerFi’s 9.5% combined royalty and ad fund burden leaves franchisees with less free cash flow for third-party software than Papa Murphy’s 7% total load.

Timing seals it. Both chains are shrinking, but BurgerFi’s -15.4% unit decline signals a brand in freefall—closing locations don’t buy new systems. Papa Murphy’s -3.6% contraction is slow enough that the installed base remains a viable, multi-year hunting ground. When you stack a massive, open, relatively stable franchise network against a small, closed, rapidly contracting one, the choice is obvious.

Verdict: Papa Murphy’s is the stronger opportunity by TAM, terrain, and timing, despite BurgerFi’s per-unit budget edge.