How to Start an ATM Business: From Zero to $1,500 per Month

What if you could earn $1,500 a month in side income with just an hour of work a week — and do it with a business that practically runs itself?

That’s exactly what Will Butterton has built with five ATMs through his company, Viking Vendors LLC.

Will is a full-time engineer, a dad of three, and a multi-side-hustler who got into ATMs when his wife was pregnant and he started looking for something low-risk.

He started the business with a childhood friend, each putting in some cash to buy their first two machines. The pitch was simple: worst case, they couldn’t find locations and sold the machines to someone else.

Tune in to Episode 741 of the Side Hustle Show to learn:

what it actually takes to set up an ATM business from scratch, including the step most people don’t expect to be the hardest
how to find and pitch locations — even when most good spots already have a machine
what the numbers look like across different types of spots, and what a single great location can do for your income

Table of Contents show

How the ATM Business Works

The model is straightforward: you own ATMs, place them in businesses, and earn a surcharge fee every time someone makes a withdrawal. That fee, typically $3 per transaction, is your entire profit margin.

Will Butterton beside ATM Machines — Photo from: https://www.businessinsider.com/passive-income-side-hustles-atm-vending-machines-small-business-2026-3

Will currently has five machines generating around $1,500 a month, requiring about one hour of work a week. He splits duties with his partner: his buddy handles the cash runs, and Will manages the rest.

The ceiling, though, is much higher. In Washington state, a single ATM in a dispensary can dispense over $5,000 in cash per day.

At 25 transactions a day over 30 days at a $3 surcharge, that’s a potential $2,250 per month from one location alone — more than Will currently earns from all five machines combined.

Step 1: Form Your LLC and Open a Business Bank Account

Before buying anything, you need an LLC and an EIN (your federal tax number). That part is straightforward.

What isn’t straightforward: opening a business bank account.

Large national banks stopped working with ATM operators after a federal investigation in the early 2010s tied ATMs to money laundering and organized crime. The result is a blanket policy that makes life hard for legitimate operators.

Will had to call 6 or 7 local banks before finding one willing to work with him.

His advice: start with local banks and credit unions, and pick one with enough branches near your locations so you’re not driving 45 minutes every time you need to pull out cash.

He considers this the hardest single task in starting the business.

Step 2: Buy Your Machines

Budget around $4,500 per machine to get started:

$3,000 for the ATM itself (Will uses the Genmega 2500; Hyosung machines are also solid)
$1,000+ in cash to load the machine
$500 for receipt paper, parts, and supplies

Will buys his machines through Prineta, the same company that processes his transactions, which keeps the setup simple.

Step 3: Choose the Right ATM Processor

Your profit is the surcharge fee, so this matters more than it might seem. Find a processor that takes 0% of your surcharge. Some take 10%, which sounds small but adds up quickly.

Will uses and recommends Prineta for this as well. They don’t take any cut of his surcharge — if he charges $3, he keeps the full $3.

Their customer service is also responsive: you can text them directly and get a reply. Processors make their money on back-end agreements with card networks, not from your fee.

One more banking tip: Will runs 3 separate bank accounts for:

Vault cash – the money you load into machines
Incoming transactions – where surcharge fees land
Savings buffer – for slow periods or unexpected costs

Step 4: Find and Win Locations

This is where the real legwork happens. Most good spots already have a machine, so your pitch usually isn’t ‘you need this.’ It’s ‘I’ll do this better.’

The most common complaint Will hears from business owners is that their current ATM is always broken and takes days to get repaired. This is similar to how vending machine operators also grow their side hustle.

His edge: he’s local, gives out his cell number, and promises same-day service. He dresses the part too — button-up shirt with his logo, dress pants — and treats every pitch like a real sales call.

When scoping a new location, he checks whether they have an ATM, looks up what the surcharge is, and finds out who owns it.

Then he goes in and asks if there are any pain points with their current operator. Most of the time, there are.

His First Two Wins

Will’s first placement was an indoor soccer center in Bremerton where he was already playing cornhole in a Tuesday night beer league.

He spotted that people were constantly needing cash for side bets, pitched the owner, and landed the spot — even though his machines hadn’t arrived yet.

He set one up in his garage first to learn the process, then dropped it in.

His second placement came when his partner got a haircut at a cash-only barbershop that was sending customers to the Rite Aid next door.

That machine now does up to 200 transactions in a good month — or $600 in monthly revenue from a single machine.

Where to Find the Best Spots

Cash-only businesses without existing ATMs are the ideal target, but they’re rare.

Dispensaries in Washington state are what Will calls the “golden goose” — high volume, cash only — but they’re competitive and hard to crack. Will hasn’t landed one yet, though he’s working on it.

Larger ATM companies pay staff to monitor LLC registration databases and contact new businesses before they even open.

As a small operator, you can’t compete on that. But you can compete on service — being local, responsive, and easy to work with.

Managing the Route Day-to-Day

Once you’re up and running, the main time commitment is loading cash.

The monitoring is mostly automated: Will gets an automatic text alert whenever any machine drops below $400, and he can check transactions in real time from the processor’s website.

He and his partner keep the route intentionally small — sized to what they can service well without it taking over their lives.

They have a number in their heads for how many more machines they could add while staying within their one-hour-a-week commitment. For them, passive income that fits family life matters more than maximum scale.

That said, Will also warns against growing too fast. He knows a local operator with over 400 machines who, by his own admission, can’t take a vacation because he can’t let the machines run dry.

At some point, it stops being passive income and becomes a job.

Contracts and Exit Value

All of Will’s locations sign two-year location agreements. The contracts aren’t complicated — just a 30-day heads-up if they want to remove the ATM, plus clauses about liability in case of theft.

He had one reviewed by a lawyer and is considering switching to five-year terms to increase the route’s resale value.

ATM routes typically sell for around 2.5x gross revenue. At his current setup, Will estimates he could get $45,000–$50,000 if he sold today, though he has no plans to. He’d rather pass the business down to his kids.

Theft and Insurance

Theft is real. Will had an ATM stolen by a crime ring in Washington that hit over 30 machines. He got it back, but the experience made insurance feel non-negotiable.

The ATM-specific insurance he initially looked into cost $2,250 a year to cover just two machines — more than they were profiting at the time. He eventually found Coterie Insurance, which covers ATMs for around $90 a month.

Physical deterrents like concrete studs and floor bolts can slow thieves down, but a truck will rip out most machines regardless.

Wall mounts are the most theft-resistant option. Will’s advice: once you have enough machines that insurance makes financial sense, get it.

Will’s Other Side Hustle: Trading Cards on Whatnot

Will and his partner also run a trading card business on Whatnot, a live-streaming auction platform. They called it The Pack Daddies.

They started with sports cards, took some early losses, including selling a $40 card for $2 on their first night, and kept going.

For about seven months they streamed every Saturday night after putting their kids to bed.

They eventually added Friday nights, pivoted from sports cards to 90s nostalgia items like Pokémon and Magic cards, and built a real following.

In 2025, they did over $92,000 in Whatnot sales plus $20,000 in private deals, for roughly $110,000 in total sales.

Their sourcing strategy: buy complete collections from sellers at 70–80% of market value, then auction items individually on the platform.

Tools/Tech

Prineta: ATM processor with real-time transaction dashboard and automated low-cash alerts
Genmega 2500: Will’s preferred ATM model
Hyosung: Another ATM model

Mistakes and Surprises

The biggest surprise: how hard it is to open a business bank account. Most people assume the machine or the location is the obstacle. It’s the bank.

A close second: not having location contracts from day one. Agreements add real value if you ever want to sell the route and protect you if a business decides to kick your machine out with no notice.

What’s Next for Will?

Will wants to keep the ATM route manageable while still chasing that dispensary location.

On the trading card side, he and his partner are treating it increasingly like a real business — sourcing collections, separating finances, and scaling consistently.

Long-term, his goal is to pass both businesses down to his three kids, giving them a hands-on introduction to entrepreneurship early enough that it actually sticks.

Will’s #1 Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Be the person selling the shovel during a gold rush. Don’t be the person digging for gold.”

Episode Links

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