The quick answer to this question is a resounding yes; however earning a full time living in vending isn’t as easy as it may initially appear on paper. A full time route may require over 300 or more machines in well performing locations and obviously locating and placing this many machines is a Herculean effort.

When just starting out, you either need to invest money or time. If you’re hoping to go full time immediately, then you’ll need the initial investment for the 300+ machines, plus product, plus living expenses to sustain you while you work on getting your route established. The reality is that not many people have this type of money to invest, plus it is risky to make this large of a financial investment in a business you know very little about.

The route that most people follow and the one I most recommend is starting slow and building up a route over the course of a few years. With very little money, it is possible to buy a few used vending machines for pennies on the dollar, start locating and servicing the route, this allows you to get a general feel for the business while limiting your financial risk. The downside to this method is that it may take up to 3 to 5 years to build up to a full time route.

In order to do it full time, you’d really need to live in a fairly good sized city. I know there are people who do it in smaller communities and have routes that are spread out over several counties, but personally I wouldn’t want to do that. It would seriously increase your gas expenses to say nothing of your time commitment. One of the best parts about vending is that it is a very time efficient business, so anything that then makes it more time intensive makes it less appealing to me. Of course, if you live in a small community, you don’t have a whole lot of options. A very big potential upside to a route that is dispersed over a bunch of smaller communities is that there is probably less competition, so you may be the only vender working the area. Who knows, this could actually end up working to your advantage.

So, while it’s definitely possible to earn a decent full time income from vending machines, it’s not always easy and it’s certainly not for everyone.