Put in what the machine costs and what the site will really sell, and see the monthly profit, your pay per restocking hour and how long it takes to get your money back.
Less than the sellers say. The Hustle surveyed 23 vending operators and found the average machine in its sample grossed $309 a month, with self-reported figures from $75 to $650. It called the sample small. Cantaloupe, a vending payments processor, reports an average sale of $2.01 in 2025: $1.57 in cash and $2.45 by card.
Five sales a day at $2.01 is about $306 a month in sales, close to The Hustle's average. After a 10% location commission, half of sales spent on stock, card fees and fuel, the defaults leave about $81 a month. That is the honest centre of this business for one machine at an ordinary site.
The number that decides everything is sales a day, and nobody can give it to you before the machine is on site. Ask the location how many people are there on a normal day, and whether there is food within a short walk. A busy break room with nothing nearby sells; a quiet lobby next to a shop does not.
Southern Equipment Sales, a Georgia dealer, lists a refurbished Automatic Products 113 Revision snack machine at $2,095 in its cleaned-and-working grade, with a 90-day parts warranty and drop sensors, checked November 2026. It weighs 700 pounds, and the dealer offers a $249 freight special with restrictions.
Nayax sells its VPOS Touch card reader at $399 each for one to four units on its US store. Most sales are by card now: Cantaloupe reports 71% of vending sales were cashless in 2024.
The defaults add $550 for freight and placement and $250 for the first fill. Both are estimates from our vending machine guide, which works through freight broker quotes and wholesale case prices. Put in your own quotes.
The location usually takes a cut of gross sales. Trade sources put small-account commission at 5% to 20%, and operators in The Hustle's survey reported paying 10% to 25%. Small sites such as workshops sometimes take nothing, while schools, hospitals and campuses are contracted to large operators on terms a single machine cannot match.
Stock is the biggest cost. The Hustle's operators reported about half of revenue going to cost of goods. Card fees come next: Nayax resellers publish 5.95% per transaction on sales of $5 and under, or 2.5% plus $0.10 above that, and a $7.95 monthly fee per reader.
Then your time. Every restocking trip is driving, loading, counting and cleaning. The calculator divides the monthly profit by those hours, and for one machine the result is often below minimum wage.
Monthly sales are sales a day times the average sale times 30.4 days. Commission and product cost are percentages of sales. Card fees are the card share of sales times the per-transaction rate, plus the reader's monthly fee. Fuel is visits times fuel per visit.
If you finance part of the equipment, the loan is paid monthly on a normal amortising schedule: payment = loan x r / (1 - (1 + r)^-n), where r is the yearly rate divided by 12 and n is the term in months. The 12% default rate is a placeholder; use the rate on your quote.
Months to get your cash back divides the money you put in by the monthly profit. Break-even sales a day divides your fixed monthly costs (reader fee, fuel and loan payment) by what each daily sale contributes after commission, stock and card fees.
Skip it if you need the money to pay a bill in the next six months. At the defaults one machine takes about 41 months to give back what you put in, and a slow site can mean never.
Skip it if you do not already have a site in mind and a vehicle that can carry stock every week. The calculator assumes you restock four times a month; a machine that runs empty for a week loses the sales and often the location.
Skip any deal where the machine comes bundled with locations you have not seen. Visit the site, count the people, check for food nearby and ask the manager who decides. Then run this calculator with the sales a day you would bet your own money on, not the seller's figure.
Walk away from anyone selling machines with locations and income promised. The FTC's Business Opportunity Rule requires sellers to hand buyers a one-page disclosure document at least seven calendar days before the buyer signs or pays, and any earnings claim must come with a written earnings claim statement and evidence behind it. A seller who promises a monthly income and cannot hand you that paperwork is a seller to leave.
Locator services that charge per placement deserve the same test: ask for the names of sites they placed last year and call them. Our vending machine business guide goes through the enforcement record, route sales and the costs this calculator leaves out.
Usually tens of dollars to a few hundred, not thousands. The Hustle's survey of 23 operators found machines grossing $75 to $650 a month, $309 on average. At $309 in sales, after a 10% commission, half on stock, card fees and fuel, one machine leaves roughly $80 a month before your time.
About $3,000 for a refurbished machine set up to take cards. A refurbished AP 113 Revision snack machine lists at $2,095 at Southern Equipment Sales, a Nayax VPOS Touch reader costs $399, and freight and a first fill add a few hundred dollars more, checked November 2026.
Trade sources put small-account commission at 5% to 20% of gross sales, and operators surveyed by The Hustle reported 10% to 25%. Some small sites take nothing. Large institutions sign contracts with big operators that include higher commissions, signing bonuses and service guarantees.
With no loan and the defaults here, about 1.3 sales a day covers the reader fee and fuel. Paying back a $3,294 outlay in a year takes far more: at $2.01 a sale and these costs, each daily sale adds about $21.86 a month, so it needs about 14 sales a day.
For most people one machine is a slow hobby, not an income: the defaults here take about 41 months to pay back. It works better for people with a site that has captive foot traffic and no food nearby, a vehicle, and the patience to build several machines into a short route.