Is this vending location actually worth keeping? Free, no signup.
Thinking about adding a spot like this? Enter what you expect.
Vending operators lose money on the location they never really priced. A $650-a-month gross sounds fine until product cost, commissions, card fees, spoilage, gas, and your own restock hours all get counted. Start with the hourly value of your route time (40) and your monthly take-home goal ($4,000). Pick a location preset: Office breakroom, Warehouse, Gym, or Slow site, each filling gross sales, product cost percent, commission percent, card fee percent, spoilage, reader fee, trips per month, minutes per trip, and round-trip miles as editable starting points. The servicing card counts trips, minutes, miles, and vehicle cost per mile, with an optional financed-machine payment that adds the monthly note to the location cost. Results show a line-item breakdown, the true net profit per month, your profit per hour of route time, and one of four verdicts: KEEPER, MARGINAL with a watch-it warning, WEAK with pull-or-renegotiate guidance, or PULL IT. The tool also computes the gross the spot needs to clear your bar, and flags any commission over 20 percent. The new-location test grades an expected spot before you sign. The route planner turns your goal into a location count. No signup; runs on your phone.
Example only, not typical pricing. Office breakroom preset at a $40 bar: $650 gross with 42 percent product cost ($273), 12 percent commission ($78), 3.5 percent card fees ($22.75), $18 spoilage, $10 reader fee, and gas of 2 trips times 36 miles at $0.67 ($48.24). Total costs are $273 plus $78 plus $22.75 plus $18 plus $10 plus $48.24 equals $449.99. True net is $650 minus $449.99 equals $200.01 per month. Route time is 2 trips times 90 minutes equals 3 hours, so the profit per hour is $200.01 divided by 3 equals $66.67, which clears the $40 bar, and the verdict is KEEPER. The tool notes this spot needs about $569.99 in gross sales to clear the bar ($40 times 3 hours plus $449.99 in costs). The new-location test grades a $400-gross spot at 2 trips as a $93.76 net paying $31.25 per hour: MARGINAL, watch it. The route planner turns $200.01 per location into 20 locations and 60 route hours for a $4,000 month, which is under a full-time month, so the math holds.
Why do I have to price my own time?
Because restock trips are the cost nobody books. Valuing your route hours at your bar turns gas-station math into business math, and it is the line that separates gross from real net.
What does the over-20-percent commission flag mean?
Commissions above 20 percent of gross eat the location alive. The flag means the deal needs renegotiating or the machine should move to a cheaper spot.
When does a location grade MARGINAL?
When it makes money but pays less than your bar per hour. It is not a loser yet, but one bad month of spoilage or an extra trip pushes it under.
What is the new-location test for?
It runs your expected gross and trip count through the same cost structure before you sign. A spot that grades WEAK on paper will grade WEAK on your route.
What does the route planner do?
It divides your monthly goal by the per-location net to show how many spots like this one you need, plus the total route hours, and it warns past 160 hours that you need stronger locations, not more weak ones.