Do vending machines make money? Only the ledger knows.
The vending business has a built-in illusion: the cash box. Every collection day you hold real, physical money, and holding money feels like profit. But the box shows gross, and three quiet subtractions stand between gross and truth — the product you loaded, the location's cut, and the repairs. A machine can feel busy for a year while earning almost nothing, and the only way to know is a ledger that makes the subtractions every single stop.
Net per stop: the only honest collection number
One row per service stop: what you collected, what you loaded (at your cost, not retail), and anything else the visit cost — a compressor call, a coin-mech, the parking. Then the row computes: collected × (1 − the location's commission) − product − other. Commissions deserve special respect because they're invisible in the cash box — the location's 10 or 12 percent leaves the box before you ever count it mentally, and skipping it flatters every machine at a commissioned spot. A stop where a $95 service call ate the collections should read negative, in red, because that's what happened.
Payback percent: the number that decides where machines live
Per machine, two figures tell the whole story. Net to date — every stop's net, summed. And the one serious operators actually chase: payback — net to date divided by what the machine cost you to buy and place. A machine at 100% has returned its capital; everything after is genuinely yours. Ranked side by side, a route stops being a feeling:
| Machine | Location | Net YTD | Paid back |
|---|---|---|---|
| M-5 | Office park — break room | $828 | 22% |
| M-3 | Community gym — lobby | $772 | 33% |
| M-1 | Transmission shop | $501 | 35% |
| M-6 | Laundromat — north side | $38 | 3% |
That last row is the decision the cash box was hiding. Thirty-eight dollars of net in seven months means the laundromat machine will take roughly a decade to pay itself back — while the same machine in a better spot might do it in two years. Vending profit is mostly a location game, and moving an underperformer is usually the highest-return work on the route. But you can only move what you can see, and you can only see it if every parts run and service call was logged against the machine that caused it.
What the route-level numbers add
Across the whole route, three more figures earn their keep: net margin (route net ÷ gross collected — healthy routes often live near 45–55% before capital costs), net per stop (your effective wage for a collection visit), and cash tied up in machines not yet paid back. Together they answer the expansion question honestly: a new machine only makes sense if the route's existing capital is coming back at an acceptable rate.
A route log with commission-aware net, and payback percent per machine
The Vending Machine Route & Profit Tracker is this ledger as a workbook: a 200-stop route log where NET computes after each machine's own location commission, product at cost, and repairs (a service call that eats the visit reads red), a machines register with cost basis and PAID BACK % (green at the 100% line), and a dashboard that names the earner and the laggard — “$38 net · move it?” Pure formulas, no macros, Excel & Google Sheets.
Start the ledger before the next collection day
List the machines with what each cost you, log the next round of stops with collected-loaded-other, and read the ranking a month later. The route will tell you something the cash box never has. To be clear about this note's boundary: it describes record keeping, not legal or tax advice — location agreements and commission terms are your own contracts, and sales-tax collection on vended goods varies by state and belongs with your accountant.