Guides
Vending machine quotes that clients accept: a template with priced examples
A vending proposal template for host locations, with real price points, commission math and the contract clauses that decide whether a property manager signs.
What to take away
- A vending machine quote is a proposal to a host, not a price list for a buyer. The host decides whether your equipment enters the building.
- Priced examples work inside a quote template when they are labeled as your numbers from your invoices, not as industry rates.
- Commission is calculated on a stated base. Ambiguity there causes more disputes than the rate itself.
- The service commitment is the section facilities managers read twice.
- Every figure in the document should trace to an invoice, a signed agreement, a processor fee schedule or a count you took.
Why the examples carry real numbers
Most quote templates tell you to avoid prices. That advice produces proposals no host can compare and no operator can defend.
The priced examples below use illustrative figures, clearly marked. Replace each one with your own delivered cost, your own commission rate and your own card fees. The structure is what makes your proposal comparable to a competitor's.
A host who finds your actual numbers, stated plainly, has nothing to challenge.
Your supplier invoice supplies the delivered cost. Vistar, a Performance Food Group company, is one common source, and case prices at Costco Business Center or Sam's Club are another.
Card fees come from your processor. Nayax and Cantaloupe, which sell vending card readers and telemetry, publish plan sheets showing what a reader and a data plan cost per machine.
The template, section by section
1. Cover line. Site name, contact, date, and the term of the offer. Give the offer an expiry, so it does not follow you into a renegotiation a year later.
Vending Quote Sections
- Cover linesite, contact, date, expiry
- What is proposedmachine type, quantity, position
- Audiencewho uses it, when, observed count
- Product approachopening range, adjusted from sales
- Pricing approachhow set, reviewed, host told
- Commissionrate, base, period, payment date
Copy this wording for the cover:
[Site name], [address]. Proposal submitted [date] by [your company]. Machines proposed: one snack machine and one refrigerated unit, placed in the second floor break room. This offer is valid until [date, 30 days from submission].
Priced example: a 120-vend-per-week office site
The figures below are illustrative. Substitute your own.
120-Vend Office Site Economics
- $1.03gross margin per vend
- 120vends per week
- $123.60gross margin per week
- $65.44net after route cost
120-vend-per-week office site
| Line | Illustrative figure | Where your number comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered cost per unit | $0.72 | Your supplier invoice |
| Retail price, 20 oz bottle | $1.75 | Your price list |
| Gross margin per vend | $1.03 | Price minus delivered cost |
| Vends per week | 120 | Your counter or telemetry |
| Gross margin per week | $123.60 | Margin times vends |
| Commission rate | 10% of gross sales | Your signed agreement |
| Commission per week | $21.00 | Rate times gross sales |
| Card share of sales | 45% | Processor dashboard |
| Card fee, 2.6% plus $0.10 | $1.16 per week | Processor fee schedule |
| Net per week before route cost | $101.44 | Margin minus commission minus card fees |
| Route cost per visit | $18.00 | Fuel, labor, vehicle wear |
| Visits per week | 2 | Your service commitment |
| Net after route cost | $65.44 | Net minus route cost |
At those figures the site clears its cost with room to spare. Change the commission to 20% and the net drops to $54.44. Change the vend count to 60 and the site stops covering a twice-weekly visit.
Card readers and telemetry are billed on a separate plan. Nayax and Cantaloupe commonly charge a few dollars to about $12 per machine each month, depending on the plan and the data package. Check the current plan sheet before you fold it into this arithmetic.
Run this table before you send the document. The per vend method sets out the arithmetic in full, and the break-even tests show what to do when the answer is marginal.
Priced example: a 40-vend-per-week break room
40-vend-per-week break room
| Line | Illustrative figure |
|---|---|
| Vends per week | 40 |
| Gross margin per week | $41.20 |
| Commission at 10% | $7.00 |
| Card fees | $0.39 |
| Net before route cost | $33.81 |
| Visits per week | 1 |
| Route cost per visit | $22.00 |
| Net after route cost | $11.81 |
This site works only if it sits on a route you already drive. As a standalone stop it loses money, and no commission rate fixes that. Decline it, or pair it with a nearby site that shares the trip.
2. What is proposed. Machine type or types, quantity, and where each would stand. Name the equipment the way an operator would: a Crane Merchant snack machine, an AMS combo unit, a Seaga or Wittern refrigerated unit. The host is approving a position, so describe the position.
3. The audience you are serving. One short paragraph on who uses the machine and when, based on what you observed rather than what they told you. A stopped count taken at their busy hour, cited as a count on a stated day and time, is the single most persuasive line in most proposals.
4. Product approach. How the mix will be chosen and reviewed. Most openings stay ordinary: Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Keurig Dr Pepper bottles, plus Frito-Lay snacks and Mars Wrigley confection. Say the opening range is a starting point, adjusted from real sales in the first weeks. Do not attach a fixed product list to a proposal you will want to change.
5. Pricing approach. State how prices are set, that they are reviewed when supplier costs move, and that the host is told before a change. Attach an indicative list if they ask, marked as indicative.
6. Commission. The rate, the base it is calculated on, the period, the payment date, and what statement they receive. Bases vary: gross sales, gross sales after sales tax, or gross sales less card fees. Be exact about which base you mean.
7. Service commitment. Visit frequency, how a fault is reported, your response time, and what happens if you miss it. This is the section a facilities manager reads twice.
Copy this wording for the service commitment:
We service this site twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Report a fault by phone or text to [number], and we respond the same business day. If a machine is out of service for more than 48 hours, we credit commission for each full day it is down.
8. Installation. Delivery date, power requirement, who does any electrical work, floor protection, and the clear approach to the machine that both parties agree to keep. Most machines run on a standard 115-volt outlet; a refrigerated unit usually needs its own circuit.
9. Compliance and insurance. Which permits you hold, which agency issued them, your insurance limits, and whether the host is named. Typical permits are a state sales tax permit from the revenue department and a food or vending permit from the city or county health department. General liability of $1 million per occurrence is a common host requirement. Attach the certificate.
10. Term and exit. Length, notice, renewal, and who removes the machine at the end and at whose cost. Host agreements commonly run one to three years.
Worked structure: the commission statement
Every period, the host should receive the same layout. Filling it in the same way every time prevents most commission disputes.
The commission statement
| Line | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Statement period | Four weeks ending 31 July 2026 |
| Location | Machine 1, second floor break room |
| Gross sales | $840.00, counted from the card reader and the coin box |
| Commission base | Gross sales, as the signed agreement defines it |
| Commission rate | 10% |
| Commission due | $84.00 |
| Payment date | The 15th of the following month, by check or transfer |
| Machine downtime credit | $7.00 for the two days Machine 1 was out of service |
Commission Statement Layout
- Machine identifier
- Period dates
- Gross sales
- Deduction, if any
- Commission base
- Rate from signed agreement
- Commission due
- Days out of service
The last row buys goodwill. A host who can see that you noticed a machine was down for two days trusts the rest of the statement.
The price formula you keep for yourself
The host does not need this. You do, and it is what stops a proposal committing to a commission the site cannot support.
What follows is a formula, not a worked example. Your own delivered cost, commission rate, card fees and vend count are what fill it.
Internal Price Justification
- Take delivered cost d, commission rate K, card fees f and q
- Compute retention: p - d - (K x p) - (f x p) - q
- Multiply blended retention by expected vends between visits
- Compare result to cost of a visit
- If not comfortably positive, change the commission rate
Take delivered cost per unit d, the proposed commission rate K, the card percentage f and the fixed card amount q, and a candidate price p. What a card sale retains is p - d - (K x p) - (f x p) - q.
Multiply the blended retention by the vends you expect between visits. Compare it to the cost of a visit. If that comparison is not comfortably positive, the commission rate in the proposal is wrong, however good the site looks.
What to avoid putting in a quote
- Earnings or savings promises to the host that you cannot substantiate. Claims made to win business are subject to the same standards as any other advertising, set out in the Federal Trade Commission: Advertising FAQs: A Guide for Small Business.
- A fixed product list you will want to change in a month.
- A price list without a review clause.
- A service interval you cannot hold once the route grows.
- Any statement about permits or tax treatment that an office has not actually confirmed to you.
Before you send it
- The commission base is stated explicitly, not implied.
- The service commitment is one you can meet on your current route.
- The insurance certificate is attached in the form the host asked for.
- The offer has an expiry date.
- Sales and expense records behind the figures are filed, since they are part of what the Internal Revenue Service: What kind of records should I keep? guidance expects you to hold.
- Somebody other than you has read it for anything that reads as a promise.
For labor cost inside your own arithmetic, use the metropolitan wage estimates in the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics Tables rather than a national average. That matters most when the site sits far from the rest of the route and the visit carries a full trip.
Common questions
Should I show the host my costs?
Rarely in full, and sometimes in part. Explaining that a price change follows a supplier increase is useful and true. Opening your whole cost structure invites a negotiation about your margin rather than about the service.
How detailed should the first proposal be?
Detailed enough to answer the questions a facilities manager will ask, short enough to read in one sitting. If it runs long, move the detail to appendices and keep the commitments on the first page.
What if the host wants a higher commission than my arithmetic supports?
Say what the site would need to sell to support it and offer a review after a period. If they will not move and the numbers do not work, the right answer is to decline and put the machine somewhere it clears its cost.
Where the site is worth pursuing anyway, look at whether a different machine or a different service interval changes the arithmetic, and whether the pricing framework leaves room at that building. A quick check on which local sites are worth chasing often shows there is a better one nearby.
