Curves vs 9Round

9Round is the play—but it’s a timing and budget bet, not a TAM play. Curves technically gives you more doors (154 vs. 142), but every one of those doors is a DORMANT FDD and a 2023 filing. That’s stale data, meaning the vendor sales motion is flying blind on whether those units are thriving, surviving, or about to close. A dead franchise walking doesn’t buy software. 9Round’s 2026 FDD is fresh, so you can actually map a legitimate TAM and build an ROI case off current unit economics.

The decisive dimension is budget. Curves’ investment range tops out under $102k; these are micro-footprint operators running on thin margins, and a 7.5% royalty already gutting their price flexibility. 9Round’s ceiling is almost 4x higher at $390k, but the real shortage is the -29% unit growth. That’s not a tailwind—it’s a signal the brand is contracting, which puts pressure on corporate to actively support franchisee profitability. That’s exactly when a vendor can sell back-office or marketing automation as a turnaround lever. You’re not riding a growth wave; you’re solving a retention problem with operators who have more capital deployed and more pain to fix.

The terrain is the same (both approved-supplier procurement), so there’s no software-ecosystem lockout advantage either way. The tradeoff is clear: take the smaller, shrinking pool of higher-budget operators with current financials and a corporate team motivated to stabilize them, rather than chasing a slightly larger pool of ultra-lean operators on stale data with zero momentum signal.

Verdict: 9Round’s current FDD, higher investment ceiling, and turnaround urgency outweigh Curves’ unit-count edge and make it the stronger software-sales opportunity right now.