Vending Machine Revenue Calculator
Work out vending machine profit, annual return on investment, and payback period from items sold per day, profit per item, machine cost, and monthly expenses.
Does this machine in this spot pay for itself? That is the only question that matters before you sign a location agreement, and it comes down to four numbers.
Daily Gross Profit = Items Sold per Day × Profit per Item
Monthly Net Profit = (Daily Gross Profit × 30) − Monthly Expenses
Payback Period (months) = Machine Cost ÷ Monthly Net Profit
Annual Return on Investment (ROI) = (Annual Net Profit ÷ Machine Cost) × 100
Working out your profit per item
This is the number people get wrong. Profit per item is the vend price minus what you paid wholesale, minus the location owner’s commission. A $1.75 soda that cost you $0.70 wholesale leaves $1.05, and if the property owner takes 15% of gross ($0.26), you are left with about $0.79 per can. Most operators running snacks and drinks land somewhere between $0.60 and $1.00 per item. If your spreadsheet says $1.40, you probably forgot the commission.
Monthly expenses covers everything that is not the product itself: your fuel and time restocking, the card-reader service fee (usually $8 to $12 a month per machine), repairs, and any flat rent if the location charges one instead of a commission.
Worked example
A refurbished machine costs $4,000. The location moves 30 items a day and you clear $0.75 on each. Running costs are $100 a month.
Daily gross profit = 30 × $0.75 = $22.50 Monthly gross profit = $22.50 × 30 = $675 Monthly net = $675 − $100 = $575 Payback = $4,000 ÷ $575 = 7.0 months Annual net = $6,900, so ROI = 6,900 ÷ 4,000 = 172%
Location quality benchmarks
- Excellent (factory or warehouse, 200+ workers): 80 to 150 sales/day
- Good (office of 50 to 100 workers): 20 to 50 sales/day
- Average (small gym, apartment lobby): 10 to 20 sales/day
- Poor (low foot traffic): under 10 sales/day
Anything under about 10 sales a day is usually not worth the drive. The machine still costs you a restocking trip whether it sold 8 items or 80, and that trip is the real expense in this business. Operators who make money run several machines on one route, not one machine in a great spot.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
SuperGlobalCalculator is independently built and maintained. See how we build and verify our calculators.