CPK and California Pizza Kitchen vs Papa Murphy's

Papa Murphy's hands you a dramatically larger addressable market. With 965 franchised units against CPK’s 14, your total available market isn’t even in the same order of magnitude. CPK’s franchise base is so thin that even a 100% attach rate gives you pocket change in annual recurring revenue, while Papa Murphy’s 5% royalty model still leaves operators with enough margin to absorb a software line item. The unit count delta (1014 vs. 121 total) means Papa Murphy’s offers genuine scale potential right out of the gate, and the negative unit growth doesn’t cancel that advantage—it just means you’re selling into a fleet that’s actively shedding dead weight, which concentrates your effort on survivors who need efficiency tools to stay viable.

The terrain tilts further toward Papa Murphy’s when you look at budget accessibility. A franchisee writing a check for a $450K–$693K buildout can swallow a software subscription far more readily than a CPK operator staring down a $1.6M–$5.4M all-in investment where every line item is already tight and royalty plus ad fund are already identical at a combined 7%. CPK’s high-end investment range also screams complex, multi-stakeholder buying committees that lengthen sales cycles, while Papa Murphy’s take-and-bake model implies simpler ops and faster decisions. The approved-supplier procurement model on both sides is a wash, so that dimension doesn’t offset the TAM and budget gap.

The meaningful tradeoff here is unit economics versus wallet credibility. CPK’s average unit volume almost certainly dwarfs Papa Murphy’s, and a single CPK deployment could carry a much higher contract value. But when you’re building a pipeline, volume beats vanity. Ten Papa Murphy’s deals close while you’re still chasing one CPK signature, and the cumulative ARR will bury the premium deal in 18 months.

Verdict: Papa Murphy’s is the stronger software-sales opportunity right now, driven by franchise-unit TAM and a budget profile that shortens time-to-close.