In this paper, we pretend to identify the existing differences between contractual conditions fixed by franchisors of Spanish chains. With this objective, we analyze the two basic types of existing franchised chains -those that commercialize services and those others that distribute productsand if contractual stipulations and other characteristics differ in a systematic manner between them. In this sense, we have considered a series of independent variables such as size, age, initial fee, royalties or contractual initial duration. After undergoing the descriptive analysis of these variables for our sample -440 Spanish franchised chains-we have divided the latter into two groups -based on the type of chain-in order to detect significant differences between them. For this aim, we have conducted a discriminant analysis to discover which of the independent variables taken into account contribute, in a significant manner, to a correct classification of chains to their corresponding group -service or product chains-.