Vending Machine Profit Calculator: What One Machine Makes a Month

October 17, 2026 · Selling products and running the numbers

How much profit a vending machine makes a month comes down to four numbers: what one sale leaves after product cost, card fees and the location’s commission; how many sales a month; the machine’s fixed costs; and what the restocking route costs once your time is counted. In the illustrative machine below, 12 sales a day bring in $720.00 of sales a month, leave $263.80 before anyone drives out to restock it, and $208.13 after the route.

That machine is an example built to show the method. This post makes no claim about what vending machines or locations earn in general - your numbers decide that, and every input below is one you can replace with your own.

The vending machine profit formula

profit per vend  = price - product cost - card fees per vend - commission per vend
monthly profit   = vends a month x profit per vend - fixed costs - expired stock
after the route  = monthly profit - route cost per machine

Card fees per vend are blended: the fee on one card sale times the share of sales paid by card. Commission is the location’s share of the selling price. Route cost per machine is one restocking run, your time plus the vehicle, times runs a month, divided by the machines on the route.

Step 1: what one sale leaves

The illustrative machine sells an item at $2.00 that cost $0.85. 60% of sales are paid by card, at 5% plus $0.10 a transaction, so a card sale pays $0.20 in fees and the blended fee is $0.12 a vend. The location takes 10% of the price.

The shelf price suggests a margin of 57.5%. After fees and the commission, a vend keeps $0.83, or 41.5% of the price.

Step 2: one month at the machine

At 12 vends a day for 30 days, the machine makes 360 sales a month: $720.00 of sales and $298.80 of profit from vends. Take off $25.00 of fixed costs (card reader service, an insurance share) and $10.00 of expired or damaged stock, and the machine leaves $263.80 a month. That is the machine’s profit, but not yet the profit of running it.

Step 3: the route that keeps it stocked

A machine does not restock itself. The example route has 8 machines and is driven 4 times a month: 40 miles at $0.70 a mile for the vehicle, 1.5 hours of driving and 20 minutes at each machine to restock, clean and collect. Your time is priced at $20.00 an hour, what you would pay someone else to run it, even if you pay yourself nothing.

• One run: 4.17 hours, $83.33 of time + $28.00 of vehicle = $111.33
• Per machine a month: $111.33 x 4 runs / 8 machines = $55.67

That is 21% of the machine’s $263.80, which leaves $208.13 a month - $2,497.60 over twelve months - after the route. Time, not miles, is 75% of the cost of a run.

The insight: the commission is on the price, not on the profit

A 10% commission sounds small. But it is taken from the $2.00 selling price, not from what the sale leaves. Before commission, a vend keeps $1.03. The location’s $0.20 is 19.4% of that - close to double the headline rate - and more per vend than the card fees.

Every point of commission comes straight off the bottom line, because product cost, fees and the route stay the same. Here is the same illustrative machine across a range of commissions:

If a location asks for 15% instead of 10%, the machine loses $36.00 a month, 17% of its profit after the route, and would need 1.6 more vends every day to make it back. Turn the question around: if you need $250.00 a month from the vends before fixed and route costs, the highest commission you can agree to is 16.8%. Knowing that number before the conversation is the point of working it out.

The other limit: hours, not machines

The route is also what caps the business. In the example, each machine visit takes about 31 minutes once driving is shared out, and each machine takes another 0.5 hours a month for buying stock and counting cash. That is 2.58 hours per machine a month. With 80 hours a month to give the route, you can carry 31 machines. Past that, the next machine needs a helper or a denser route, and both change the route cost per machine.

How many sales a day before it pays?

The profit after the route still ignores what the machine cost. Spread the $4,000 example machine over 60 months of service and it costs $66.67 a month. At different sales rates:

At 6 vends a day, this machine pays its route but not its own price; at 9 it pays both. The break-even is 6.3 vends a day, so sales at the example’s 12 a day could fall 47% before the machine loses money.

Bought outright, the $4,000 machine pays back in 19.2 months at $208.13 a month. A used machine at $2,200 with repairs, carrying $25.00 a month of extra repairs, pays back in 12.0 months.

How these were calculated

Profit per vend is price - product cost - (card share x (price x card percentage + fixed fee)) - price x commission. Monthly profit is vends a day x days x profit per vend - fixed costs - expired stock. Route cost per machine is ((driving hours + machines x minutes per machine / 60) x hourly value + miles x vehicle cost per mile) x runs a month / machines. Break-even vends a day is (machine cost / months of service + fixed costs + expired stock + route cost) / profit per vend / days. Every figure on this page was computed twice: once by the code behind the product below, and once by an independent program that blends a card sale with a cash sale and adds up a route run stop by stop. The two agree to the cent. Every price, cost, fee, commission, sales rate and machine price is an illustrative input, not a market figure. Sales tax and income tax are not modeled. None of this is financial, legal or tax advice.

To run this on your own machines, prices and route, the pack below has seven linked calculators, including the commission you can afford and how many machines your hours can carry.