Guides
Quoting an ATM route business job: template and real numbers
A working quote template for an ATM route job, with example figures filled in: surcharge, commission split, response time, term and removal.
What to take away
- Quoting an ATM route business job works best as a short written proposal with figures filled in, not a blank template. The example here uses a $3.00 surcharge, a 25% venue commission, a 24-hour fault response and a 36-month term.
- Those figures are illustrative. U.S. surcharges commonly sit between $2.50 and $3.50 as of 2026, with high-traffic sites at $3.95 or more. Venue splits commonly run 10% to 50% of the surcharge, or a flat $100 to $500 per machine per month.
- The commission section states a method and the inputs it uses. It never states what the venue will earn.
- Half the value sits in the sections that are not about moneyposition, access, service response, term and removal.
- Send the same structure every time. Consistency is what lets you compare your own deals a year later.
Operators either send nothing or send a contract. Both lose sites. What works is a short written proposal a venue owner can read in five minutes and act on, followed by the agreement once they say yes. The template below lays out every field with example numbers, including machine costs, surcharges, commission splits and response times.
Header block
- Prepared for:the venue's legal name and the person who can sign.
- Site address:the specific site, not the company address, because a chain may have several.
- Prepared by:your business name, contact and the date.
- Valid until:a real date. An open-ended proposal gets used against you later.
- Reference:your own number for it, so you can find it when the venue calls in March.
Section 1: what is being proposed, in three lines
State the machine, where it will sit, and who owns it. Nothing else. A reader who stops here should still know what they are agreeing to.
Example: one Genesis ATM or Hyosung Halo II, owned and operated by your business, installed inside the front entrance of the venue at 1410 Marlow Avenue, serviced by you. A new Halo II typically costs $2,000 to $3,000. A refurbished machine from Triton Systems or Diebold Nixdorf typically costs $1,200 to $2,000.
Section 2: what the venue gets
Write this as obligations you are accepting, not as benefits you are claiming.
What the venue gets
- The machine, installed and maintained at your cost.
- Cash supplied and replenished by you, at your risk.
- A stated service response for a fault, in hours or business days, that you can actually meet.
- A named contact and a number that is answered.
- Reportingwhat they will see, in what form, and how often.
Example: faults answered within 24 hours, Monday to Saturday, by a named route technician with a direct mobile number. Typical contract response times run 24 to 48 hours on business days. Same-day service usually costs extra and applies to high-volume sites.
Cash logistics often run through Brink's or Loomis. A typical cash load per machine runs $10,000 to $50,000, depending on location and withdrawal volume.
Avoid adjectives here. A venue that has heard three pitches remembers the one that promised a response time and named a person.
Section 3: the commission, stated as a method
This is the field operators fill in wrongly.
Commission section fields
- Structureper withdrawal, share, flat, tiered
- Unitdefine what is counted
- Rateyour figure from your costs
- Calculationarithmetic written out
- Source of countwhose records settle it
- Paymentfrequency, method, first date
Commission as a method
- Structure:per withdrawal, a share of the surcharge, a flat monthly amount, or tiered. Say which one.
- The unit:define exactly what is counted. A completed cash withdrawal is not a balance inquiry, a declined attempt or a reversed transaction.
- The rate:the figure you are offering, set from your own costs.
- How it is calculated:the arithmetic, written out, so both sides can check it.
- Source of the count:whose records settle it, and whether the host can see them.
- Payment:how often, by what method, and when the first one lands.
Example: a $3.00 surcharge per completed withdrawal, of which the venue receives 25%, or $0.75. At 400 withdrawals in a month the venue earns $300.00, paid by ACH within ten days of month end.
Public U.S. ranges as of 2026 put venue splits between 10% and 50% of the surcharge. A flat monthly payment commonly runs $100 to $500 per machine. A per-transaction payment to the venue commonly runs $0.25 to $1.00.
If the machine sits on Allpoint or MoneyPass, some cardholders pay no surcharge, so the venue payment must come from a flat fee or a per-transaction fee instead.
This section must never contain a projection of the venue's earnings. If you include one, you own it. Claims made to businesses must be truthful and capable of substantiation, as the FTC's advertising guidance for small businesses sets out.
The honest sentence is that their income depends on the number of withdrawals, which neither party can know before the machine is in place. Choosing the structure itself is worked through in the pricing and profit guide.
Section 4: position, power and access
Position, power and access
- Where the machine sits, described so both of you would point at the same spot.
- Who supplies power and connectivity, and who pays for it.
- When you may service the machine, and what happens if you arrive and cannot reach it.
- What the venue agrees not to domove it, block it, or let anyone else open it.
- Signagewhat may be displayed, by both parties.
Example: machine against the east wall of the entry vestibule, on the venue's power, serviced Tuesday and Friday between 7am and 9am.
Position and access terms
- Where the machine sits, precisely
- Who supplies power and connectivity
- When you may service the machine
- What the venue agrees not to do
- Signage rules for both parties
A standard 110V outlet adds little to the venue's bill, typically under $15 a month for a modern ATM. A business broadband line or cellular modem from Verizon, AT&T or T-Mobile typically runs $20 to $60 a month.
Settle the position in the proposal rather than on installation day. Positions agreed in a hurry migrate to a corridor after the next refit.
Section 5: term, notice and removal
Term, notice and removal
- Length of the initial term.
- What renews it, and what stops it renewing.
- Notice each side must give, and whether the periods are the same.
- Who removes the machine, who makes good the wall and floor, and by when.
- What happens if the venue closes or changes hands.
Example: 36-month initial term, renewing monthly unless either side gives 30 days' written notice, machine removed by you within 14 days of termination. Typical ATM route terms run three to seven years. Wall and floor repair after removal typically costs $200 to $800, depending on damage.
Term, notice and removal
- Length of the initial term
- What renews it, what stops it
- Notice each side must give
- Who removes and makes good
- If the venue closes or changes hands
Short and specific. This section decides how the relationship ends, and both parties are better served by having read it while they still like each other.
Section 6: the boring assurances
Insurance you carry, the records you keep, and the fact that your compliance position is settled and documented. Keep it factual. A typical independent operator carries $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate in general liability coverage, often through Hiscox, The Hartford or Next Insurance.
Do not describe yourself as licensed, approved or registered unless you are and can produce the paper, the discipline set out in the compliance overview.
The records behind all of it are ordinary business records. The IRS guidance on what a business should keep covers what has to sit behind them. The banking side falls inside the risk-based assessment described in the FinCEN statement on independent ATM operators.
Section 7: next steps
Three lines, and they are the reason the document exists.
Next steps in three lines
- What you need from them
- What happens then
- By when, with your contact
Next steps
- What you need from thema yes, a signature, or a decision on the position.
- What happens thenthe agreement is sent, the install is scheduled, the machine is live.
- By whena real date, with your contact against it.
Example: signature on the position by Friday 19 September, agreement sent the same week, install booked for the first week of October.
A proposal without a next step is a brochure.
Filling in the figures
The rate, the response time and the term are yours to set. They should come from your own arithmetic rather than a template.
Work out what a withdrawal at that site can carry by using the break-even method in the material on margins and break-even. A machine that costs $2,500, holds a $10,000 cash load and pays $50 a month for connectivity needs volume before it pays back.
At a $3.00 surcharge and a 25% venue commission, you keep $2.25 per completed withdrawal before processing. A switch fee of $0.05 to $0.15 per transaction leaves about $2.10 to $2.20.
At 200 withdrawals a month, operator surcharge revenue is $450 before processing. At 400 withdrawals, it is $900 before processing and the venue earns $300.00. Then decide what you are willing to concede, and in what order, before you write the number down.
Keep every proposal you send. After a year you will have a record of what you offered, what was accepted, and which terms were argued about. That record guides your market better than anything published.
As the route grows this record also tells you which deal shapes scale and which do not, a question taken up in the expansion material.
Common questions
Are the figures in this template a market rate?
No. The $3.00 surcharge and the 25% split are illustrative, chosen to show the arithmetic. U.S. surcharges commonly run $2.50 to $3.50 as of 2026, and venue splits commonly run 10% to 50%. Your own surcharge comes from your cost per withdrawal and what the site's traffic will bear.
Should the proposal include the full agreement?
No. Send the proposal first, agree the shape, then send the agreement. Sending twelve pages of terms to a busy venue owner is how a good site goes quiet.
What if they want to negotiate the rate on the spot?
Have your floor decided already, and say what you can move on instead: term, response time, reporting, or the structure itself. How to run that conversation is covered in the material on hosts and marketing.
