Chili's and Chili's Grill & Bar vs Papa Murphy's

Chili’s wins on budget and momentum, and that’s where the immediate software opportunity concentrates. The per-unit investment range of $4.0M–$6.4M signals operators with serious capital backing and a willingness to spend on infrastructure—POS, scheduling, and back-office systems aren’t afterthoughts in that buildout. With 2.06% unit growth and a fresh 2025 FDD, the brand is actively expanding, which means new-location software deals and rip-and-replace cycles at existing units chasing operational efficiency. The tradeoff is a thin franchised base of just 99 units, so the addressable franchise TAM is tiny; you’re essentially selling into a corporate-heavy footprint where a single enterprise deal could lock the whole chain, but losing it leaves almost no franchise fallback.

Papa Murphy’s dominates on terrain, with 965 franchised units forming a broad, fragmented field of independent owner-operators. That’s a textbook land-grab for a vendor that thrives on high-volume, smaller-deal sales motions. But the -3.6% unit contraction is a flashing red light: a shrinking footprint means fewer net-new installations and a customer base more focused on cost-cutting than technology investment. The lower investment range ($450K–$693K) also suggests operators with tighter margins who will scrutinize software ROI ruthlessly, making deal cycles longer and churn risk higher when times get tough.

The meaningful tradeoff is concentrated enterprise budget and growth at Chili’s versus distributed franchise volume in decline at Papa Murphy’s. Right now, a vendor that can navigate a corporate sales cycle should bet on Chili’s—the expansion tailwind and per-unit spending power create a richer, if narrower, pipeline. A vendor built purely for high-velocity SMB sales might still prefer Papa Murphy’s sheer unit count, but they’d be fighting headwinds in a contracting system.

Verdict: Chili’s is the stronger software-sales opportunity right now, driven by unit growth and per-location investment heft that outweigh its thin franchise count.