How much does a vending machine make per month?

Short answer

A single vending machine grosses $150–$600 a month in an average location and nets $60–$250 after product cost and commission. Strong placements — hospitals, gyms, factories with shift workers — can gross $700–$1,500, while weak office placements often make under $80.

Vending machine performance by location type

Location	Monthly gross	Monthly net
Small office (under 50 staff)	$60–$180	$25–$75
Gym / fitness club	$250–$700	$110–$300
Manufacturing / warehouse	$400–$1,200	$170–$500
Hospital / campus	$600–$1,500	$250–$650
Apartment building	$100–$300	$40–$130

How to read this table

Hospital / campus sits at the top of the table ($600–$1,500) — $250–$650. If your situation looks like this row, plan against the upper half of the range rather than the midpoint.
Small office (under 50 staff) anchors the bottom ($60–$180) — $25–$75. Treat this as the conservative case you should still be profitable at.
The gap between the top and bottom row is roughly 25×. That spread is why a single blended average is close to useless here — pick the row that matches your setup instead of averaging the column.
Most rows are ranges, not single figures. The low end usually reflects a weaker month, a softer audience geography, or an unoptimised setup; the high end reflects a well-run, well-targeted operation of the same size.
With 5 reference points in the "vending machine performance by location type" table, the fastest way to use this page is to find the closest row, take its monthly gross, then stress-test it ±30% before you build a plan on it.

Context

Vending economics are location economics. Product margin is roughly 50–60% and fairly constant, so the only real variable is captive foot traffic with no nearby alternative. Route density then decides whether the business scales: servicing eight machines within a ten-mile radius is profitable, while the same eight spread across a county is not, because drive time is the true cost per restock. Location commissions of 5–20% of gross are standard for high-traffic sites and are worth paying when volume triples.

What moves this number

Owner compensation treatment

Whether the owner's pay sits above or below the profit line changes reported margin by 10–20 points on identical economics. Normalise to seller's discretionary earnings before comparing anything.

Fixed cost base

Rent, insurance and salaried staff set the break-even point. A business with a low fixed base survives a soft quarter that would close a heavily-loaded competitor.

Customer concentration

When the top client exceeds a quarter of revenue, both cash flow and sale value are discounted. Diversification is worth real margin.

Cash conversion cycle

Days of inventory plus receivables minus payables decides how much working capital the business needs to fund the same revenue.

Methodology

Unit-sales modelling at typical vend prices and 55% product margin, with restock labour costed at route-density assumptions used in the RevenueLab vending and side-income calculators.

Assumptions and caveats

Figures are pre-tax and assume the owner is paid a market-rate salary unless a row says otherwise.
Sector benchmarks hide wide local variation in rent, wages and demand.
This page was last reviewed on 2026-08-12. Ranges are updated as new data lands, so re-check before using them in a contract or a plan.
Use these numbers as a starting range, not a guarantee — your own historical data always beats a benchmark.

Frequently asked questions