Season 2 Franchising vs Aaron's and Aaron's Sales & Lease Ownership

Aaron’s gives you the budget and the TAM. With 224 franchised units and a total footprint north of 1,100 locations, you’re selling into a mature, capital-heavy operator base where the low-end investment is $307K and the high end pushes past $830K. That’s real back-office spend capacity—multi-location owners who already run POS, scheduling, and marketing stacks and have the cash to replace or layer on new software. The 6% royalty and 5% ad fund also signal a system that’s built to absorb vendor costs without flinching. The tradeoff is zero unit growth: you’re not riding a wave, you’re mining an installed base.

Season 2 Franchising wins on timing and terrain. 100% unit growth off a tiny base means every new operator is a greenfield deployment—no legacy system to rip out, no political battles with an incumbent vendor. AUV sits at $205K, which is modest, but the investment range is tight ($188K–$276K), so these franchisees are likely owner-operators who will buy software that saves them labor from day one. The 2% ad fund and 6% royalty keep more revenue in the operator’s pocket, but the real risk is scale: 8 franchised units is a rounding error, and the FDD is already stale, so you’re selling into a story, not a proven rollout.

Verdict: Aaron’s is the stronger software-sales opportunity right now—flat growth is a feature when you’re selling into a deep, cash-rich, multi-unit base that can actually fund a deal.