Sedona Taphouse vs Papa Murphy's

Papa Murphy’s is the stronger play right now, and it’s not close. The dimension that wins is TAM—sheer unit count. With 1,119 franchised locations, you’re looking at a real addressable market, not a handful of accounts. Even with negative unit growth, the installed base is large enough that a 10–15% penetration rate delivers a meaningful pipeline. AUV of $680k isn’t massive, but it’s enough to support a tech stack when operators are already running POS, scheduling, and marketing automation across a lean, take-and-bake model. The approved-supplier procurement model also means you don’t have to fight through a franchisor gatekeeper to sell into individual owners—you can go direct, which shortens sales cycles and keeps deal control in your hands.

The tradeoff is timing and data freshness. That overdue FDD filing is a red flag for franchisee sentiment and corporate stability. You’re selling into a system that’s shrinking and may have distracted leadership. But in B2B software, a large, fragmented base of owner-operators with aging tech stacks often outweighs a pristine, tiny brand. Sedona Taphouse’s franchisor-controlled procurement kills any direct-sales motion, and with only 13 franchised units, you’re not selling software—you’re doing custom consulting for a single-digit number of buyers. The higher AUV and investment range suggest deeper pockets, but the TAM is too small to justify dedicated sales effort unless you’re chasing enterprise deals with the franchisor itself, which is a different, slower game.

Verdict: Papa Murphy’s wins on TAM and direct-sales terrain, despite negative growth and stale filings; Sedona’s controlled procurement and microscopic unit count make it a non-starter for scalable outbound.