AIO Vend

Choose the Right Equipment—Confidently

A practical guide for matching machines to real sites. Learn what to place where, why it works, and how to hit your profit targets without pulling machines.

Baseline Math: Don’t Ever Pull a Machine

Your goal: install once and keep it there. Set a minimum monthly profit target before you say yes.

Rule of thumb

  • Large operators (think Canteen/Sodexo) look for $300–$500 profit/month per machine as a baseline.
  • That’s roughly $750–$1,250 in monthly sales—about 150 sales/month.
  • Call it ~5 sales/day with at least $1.25 gross profit/product. It’s napkin math, but it gets you close.

Reality check

  • A good location can do 100+ sales/day.
  • A struggling spot might do < 10 sales/day.
  • Use these ranges to sanity-check a site before install.

What Makes a Location “Good”?

Signals you want

  • Concentration: steady daily headcount or foot traffic.
  • Limited alternatives: no cafés nearby, short breaks, small breakrooms.
  • Payment-friendly: cashless adoption, secure area.
  • Operational fit: door widths/elevators, power, and line of sight.

Signals to pause on

  • Unclear access (locked areas, awkward hours).
  • Highly seasonal or sporadic traffic.
  • Vandalism risk without supervision.
  • Single, isolated site far from your other customers.

Why Combos Make Small Offices Work

AIO Vend: Right now there’s a poor, sorry soul and eight coworkers doing paper-pushing and Excel wandering—$45/hr, starving. No chips because the breakroom is tiny. No Diet Coke for the person trying to watch their diet. They called the two vending companies nearby—one has a business license; the other has a hurricane-attacked garage. Nobody will place machines because the team is small and two big vendors don’t make sense.

Turns out it’s a multi-tenant building. The neighbors are in the same boat: no vending, no coffee, nobody paying attention because each office has five to ten employees.

This is where a combo shines. A combo lets you offer both drinks and snacks in a small footprint, which opens up underserved sites—medical billing, law, engineering, and accounting offices. Many multi-tenant buildings have shared breakrooms or coworking lounges where a single combo serves multiple small teams.

Area Strategy: Route Density Beats Lone Installs

You don’t want a single small office out on an island. You want to take over an area—capture multiple clients and services within a short drive. Industrial corridors with several warehouses, office parks with many small tenants, or medical/professional buildings are perfect.

  1. Find one “yes.” Don’t install yet.
  2. Canvas neighbors. Line up two to four more in the same radius.
  3. Install as a cluster. You’ve now got density, reduced drive time, and a profitable micro-route.

What to Place Where

Combo Machine

Best for: small offices (5–40 staff), multi-tenant buildings, tight breakrooms.

  • Both snacks & drinks in one footprint.
  • Great for smaller locations with less employees/foot traffic.
  • Can also use a Smart Cooler in place of a Combo Vending Machine

Dedicated Drink + Snack

Best for: medium to high volume sites (50–300+ daily).

  • Greater variety providing more sales potentials.
  • Great for markets with 50+ employees.

Micro-Market / Kiosk

Best for: secure workplaces with 150+ daily traffic and demand for fresh/healthy.

  • Wide Variety of products.
  • Not recommended to allow the General Public to have access due to theft.
  • There is many "sizes" to a Micro-Market, you can have a very small market that is maybe 2' x 4' or much larger.
  • Micro-Markets are often designed for the location specifically, provides a premium feel to the experience.

Warehouses

30+ Employees

  • Snack Vending Machine + a Drink Vending Machine
  • Smaller Micro-Market
  • Coffee Machines + Water Dispensers

Gyms / Recreation

Best for: health-oriented products

  • Busy Gyms do well with a Snack Vending Machine + a Drink Vending Machine or Smart Coolers. Combo Vending Machines and a single Smart Cooler for smaller/less busy.
  • Protein Shakes and Bars, Hydrating liquids such as Gatorade, low-sugar,
  • Sometimes they have Water Services such as a Dispenser, not too often.

Medical Clinics

Placement: Typically in breakrooms, but also publicly accessible if the clinic has a waiting area with space.

  • Combo Vending Machines and Smart Coolers most commonly found.
  • Coffee Services and Water services, often everything is in the Breakroom but sometimes the waiting rooms if they have space.

Add-On Services: Coffee & Water Pay the Bills

Smaller locations often want more than snacks. Bundle services and you’ll boost retention and margin.

Quick ROI

Monthly Gross Profit: $0
Payback (months): —

Hint: aim for $300–$500 profit/month as a baseline before committing.

Need a second set of eyes?

Share your site details and goals. We’ll sanity-check the plan and point you at equipment that fits your route and budget.

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