ATM Routes for Sale: Pros and Cons

Purchasing ATM routes for sale is one of a few ways to make money with an ATM business. Whether you are thinking about starting an ATM business or you’ve already started with one or more machines of your own, you might wonder if purchasing an ATM route is a viable option for you.

Like we say all of the time, no two ATM businesses look the same. Your business should be curated to fit your specific budget and goals. There is more than one way to be successful in the ATM industry. ATM routes for sale might be one way for you, or it might not. How will you know? Keep reading to find out some pros and cons of purchasing an ATM route. We’ll explain what the process typically looks like and share our personal recommendation.

Pros of ATM Routes for Sale

Make Passive Income

One of the biggest benefits of an ATM business is the potential to make relatively passive income, regardless of how you start. Passive income means that your ATM machines make money while you sleep, travel, work another job, etc. So you are making money on each transaction made on your machines without having to be there.

But, the more time and effort you spend maintaining your machines, the less passive that income becomes. So when we say “relatively passive,” we mean that it depends on your level of experience, the number of machines on your route, and the number of operational tasks you outsource.

The more machines you have, the more work you will need to invest in your ATM business. However, you will still probably work the same if not less hours than a typical 9-5. Plus, you get to be your own boss, and you have the opportunity to replace or exceed your current 9-5 salary.

Low Overhead/Low Expenses

Purchasing an ATM route for sale will require a large initial investment (more on this later). But this cost and others associated with the business are much less than other business models. For example, you don’t need to purchase, lease, or rent real estate for a storefront. You don’t have to spend time and money on online ads and other marketing. And you don’t have to pay many (if any) employees. 

Once you make the initial investment in an ATM route and vault cash, costs after that are limited. The most essential are travel, maintenance (cleaning supplies, receipt paper, tech support if applicable, and revenue share with the location owner and any other third-party services you might use. 

Your biggest expense will be the one-time initial investment. After that, any costs associated with improving your machines and your business are fairly low, can be added at any time, and can be budgeted as your revenue steadies or increases. 

Simple Process

Buying an ATM route is the easiest way to start an ATM business. All you have to do is search for an ATM route for sale, pay the seller, and take over the operation of all of the machines on the route. 

These machines are already installed, have contracts in place, and some even include training. This removes a lot of the work associated with finding your own locations, purchasing equipment, and installing the machines.

Avoid Negotiating Locations

Negotiating locations is one of the biggest hurdles among independent ATM deployers (IADs). Although there are many strategies for simplifying and perfecting this process, purchasing an ATM route eliminates this task. Rather than spend your time approaching businesses to negotiate a placement, you can purchase a route of ATMs that are already established.

This can translate into more passive revenue and profit because you don’t have to pay yourself for the time it takes to travel to various locations, make and attend meetings, and negotiate with location owners. With that work already done, you can start making money sooner by purchasing an established ATM route.

Cons of ATM Routes for Sale

Expectation vs. Reality

It’s important to realistically manage your expectations when it comes to purchasing an ATM route. There are professionals and sellers who will make big promises (hundreds of thousands of dollars a year!) that might not be realistic for everyone. 

Yes, some investors make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with a large fleet of ATM machines (100+). But this requires a large initial investment, a lot of time and effort, and experience. You might consider purchasing an ATM route that makes $40k/year, but unless you have the experience necessary to keep those machines operational and maintain those merchant relationships, you risk making a lot less.

Dishonest Sellers

Most ATM routes for sale will provide an estimated yearly earning amount. This way you can weigh your investment against the potential return. However, this number is contingent upon the seller’s honesty. One of the downfalls of purchasing an established ATM route is that you don’t get the chance to vet the locations or choose merchants you want to work with. 

Sellers will omit any negative details about the locations. Sure, most sellers want to make a bigger profit off of their established route, but others are struggling to make a profit and need out. Maybe they are just inexperienced. Or maybe the locations don’t perform well, the contracts weren’t fairly drafted, or the merchants are difficult to work with. All of these factors will be out of your control when you purchase an established route. 

You also want to inquire about the contract lengths. There is little sense in buying an ATM location with only one year left on the agreement because if the merchant decides not to renew the contract, that one year might not be enough to earn back your initial investment. So make sure the seller is honest about how long the locations are guaranteed for.

Lose Money

While an ATM route does have the potential to earn you A LOT of money, there is also the risk of losing money. This is especially true if you are new to the ATM business and are inexperienced. Unless you know how to keep the machines operational, monitor trends by analyzing the journal, and work with merchants and other vendors, you could lose money. 

ATM machines don’t make money while they aren’t functional. Machines lose out on transactions and revenue if the surcharge fee isn’t competitive and strategically set. Merchants can void or fail to renew contracts if you don’t show them the benefit of working with you.

So an ATM route of 10 machines making $50k a year could end up being a lot less if you aren’t able to keep the machines operational and the merchants satisfied.

Lots of Work

The bigger the ATM route, the more money you can make. However, the more machines you operate, the more work you will have to do. Maintaining a route of 50-100 or more machines can turn into a full-time job. So unless you want to replace your current full-time job with an ATM route, you might be better off making supplemental income with up to 10 machines for just a few hours a week.

You also want to consider distance. How far will you have to travel to the farthest machine on the route? Or, how far apart are the locations on the route? A route in a concentrated area or zip code will be much easier to manage than a route spread out across the state. So think about travel time and costs when checking out routes, too.

There are a few things you need to do to keep your machines up and running. You have to monitor and analyze the activity on each machine to make sure it never runs out of cash. You have to travel to each machine to stock it with cash (unless you outsource the vaulting). And you have to address any bugs, outages, error codes, or damages. 

Multiply this work by the number of machines in the route you want to buy. Weigh your potential earnings against the time you will spend on the business to see if it will be worth it for you.  

How to Find ATM Routes for Sale

All it takes is a simple internet search to find listings in your area. You can search “ATM routes for sale + zip code” or expand your search to include a whole city. It just depends on how far you are willing to travel.

You can also sometimes find sellers in ATM Facebook groups and communities. You might have seen some already and wondered what a route entails and why someone would sell. Usually the poster will explain, but again, you have to rely on their honesty or do your own research to verify the details.

How Much Do ATM Routes Cost?

This is a difficult question to answer definitively since numbers and factors vary widely. However, here are a few examples based on recent listings on BizQuest:

There is a listing in Kansas City, Missouri asking $50,000 for 18 locations making around $30,000 a year. In Texas, there is a route of 11 high-end locations making $30,000 a year in Austin and a larger route of 110 ATMs making $477,000 a year for $1.5 million. And in Los Angeles, California, you could purchase a route of 5 ATMs for $90,000 with an estimated cash flow of $35,000 a year.

Add to these numbers, though, the amount of cash needed to vault the machines. If you vault with your own money, you will need to factor the amount of vault cash into your investment total. The exact amount will depend on the transaction volume of each machine. The seller should be able to provide you with a specific number. 

Should You Buy an ATM Route?

When it comes to the question of should you buy an ATM route, it can only be answered by you. Only you know your budget, your time, and your goals when it comes to operating an ATM business. 

However, based on the risks involved with purchasing an ATM route, we recommend doing this as a way to scale your business rather than starting out this way. It is better to find your own locations, purchase your own equipment, and learn the business inside and out before venturing into existing ATM routes.

The less you know about the ATM machines and the business, the more mistakes you are prone to make. It’s better to make your mistakes on a small scale with a few machines than on a large route. Yes, there are smaller routes available; there is a route of 5 currently available in Los Angeles. But you still need enough experience to be able to confidently maintain those machines and those contracts. There are so many more unknowns when buying an existing route than there are when you find your own locations.

Once you get comfortable with your own machine(s), then you can look into purchasing an ATM route to scale your business. But we’ll let you in on a little secret: It is more profitable for you to build your own route and then sell it than it is to purchase someone else’s!

If you can get a good deal on a route and good locations, there is definitely money to be made. But buying an ATM route as a beginner will end up costing you more than just starting from scratch. If you’d like to learn more about starting your own ATM business, find out more at ATMDepot.com and get your ATM Start-Up Kit today!