Costa Oil vs AlSet Auto

AlSet Auto is the stronger software-sales opportunity right now, and it comes down to timing and terrain. The filing status is the deciding signal: AlSet’s 2025 FDD is clean and current, while Costa Oil’s overdue filing raises immediate compliance risk. A brand operating with a stale disclosure makes vendor adoption cycles unpredictable—legal review stalls, franchisee onboarding chokes, and the corporate team is distracted by regulatory catch-up. AlSet’s fresher filing means you can close deals this quarter without an FDD-driven dead zone. The royalty rate (8.0% vs. 6.5%) also tells a cash-flow story: AlSet franchisees already write larger royalty checks to the franchisor, so the system has a demonstrated tolerance for recurring operational expenses, which maps directly to software subscription budget. Costa Oil’s lower royalty suggests thinner operating margins or a franchisor that extracts less, both of which compress the addressable spend per unit.

On TAM size, Costa Oil wins raw unit count, but that’s a trap. Total units (24 vs. 12) are a vanity metric when nine of Costa’s are franchised and the rest are likely corporate or in transition. AlSet’s 10 of 12 franchised units give you an almost purely franchised target environment—no corporate-store procurement politics, no slow internal IT evaluations. You’re selling into owner-operators who make their own tech decisions. The unit growth figure for AlSet (-16.667%) looks ugly at first glance, but it shrinks the immediate TAM only marginally; what it really tells you is that the existing franchisees are survivors in a consolidating system. Those operators are actively seeking efficiency gains, which your POS and back-office stack deliver. Costa’s lack of growth visibility (no YoY figure provided) combined with the filing overhang makes its larger footprint a theoretical number, not a pipeline.

The meaningful tradeoff is wallet size versus decision velocity. Costa offers a higher ceiling per location—$220K AUV and an investment range stretching to $338K signal heavier operations, which implies more complex software needs and a bigger potential ACV. But you can’t capture that premium when the franchisor can’t legally sell new units or certify vendors. AlSet’s lower investment range and smaller AUV cap your per-site deal size, but the clean filing and pure franchisee base give you faster sales cycles and an uncongested vendor landscape right now.

Verdict: AlSet Auto’s current filing compliance and franchisee-dense terrain outweigh Costa Oil’s larger TAM and higher per-unit revenue, making it the immediate software-sales priority.