Chiddy's Cheesesteaks vs Papa Murphy's

Papa Murphy’s is the stronger opportunity right now, and it’s not close. The dimension that wins is TAM. With 965 franchised units against Chiddy’s 3, you’re looking at a total addressable market that’s two orders of magnitude larger. Even a modest attach rate on Papa Murphy’s delivers more seats than owning Chiddy’s entire system. The negative unit growth (-3.6%) is a real flag, but it’s a timing and terrain problem you can price into your outreach—declining networks still churn through POS and back-office replacements, and operators in contraction often reach for efficiency tools to protect margins. Chiddy’s flat growth on a base of six units offers zero expansion motion and a single-digit ceiling on deal count.

The tradeoff is budget quality versus volume. Chiddy’s lower investment range ($182K–$447K) and higher AUV ($673K) suggest operators with healthier unit-level cash flow and less debt service, which typically means shorter sales cycles and fewer credit objections. Papa Murphy’s higher build-out cost ($450K–$693K) and lower royalty rate (5%) point to franchisees running tighter net margins, so your software pricing needs to land inside a narrow value wedge. But volume solves that: you can segment the 965-unit base, disqualify the zombies, and still have a pipeline that dwarfs anything Chiddy’s can produce.

Terrain is the other clincher. Both brands use an approved-supplier procurement model, which means no corporate-mandated tech stack lockout. You’re selling into an open ecosystem either way, but Papa Murphy’s gives you a large, distributed network where a few multi-unit operator wins can cascade into five- or ten-store deals. Chiddy’s three franchisees might all report to the same founder; you lose one deal and you’re out of the brand entirely. Concentration risk that extreme makes it a side project, not a territory.

Verdict: Papa Murphy’s is the play—massive TAM and open procurement outweigh negative unit growth, while Chiddy’s microscopic franchise base kills any software-sales thesis regardless of unit economics.