ATM business: where to place ATM machines and how to find the locations

What is an ATM business and where should you place the machines?

An ATM business places cash machines inside other owners' shops and earns a fee on each withdrawal. The most important decision is where to place ATM machines: busy, cash-heavy sites such as convenience stores, liquor stores, gas stations, bars, restaurants and hotels. You find those sites by searching a city on Google Maps, then offering the owner a placement agreement.

An ATM operator, also called an independent ATM deployer, owns or leases the machine, loads it with cash and pays the host business a rent or a commission. Revenue comes from the surcharge the customer accepts on screen. FindLaw describes the model as providing machines for cash withdrawals and collecting a surcharge on each transaction, and says a new machine may cost around $1,500 to $3,000.

For a surcharge benchmark, Bankrate's 2025 survey found an average ATM surcharge of $3.22 and an average total out-of-network cost of $4.86 once the customer's own bank fee is added. Those are bank-operated figures, so treat them as a reference point and not as the price you must charge.

Most guides stop at a generic list of location types. The part that decides whether you earn anything is the work after that list: turning "convenience stores" into a ranked set of named stores in your own city.

Which businesses are the best locations for an ATM?

The best ATM locations combine high foot traffic with a habit of paying in cash. FindLaw lists convenience stores, liquor stores, retail stores, gas stations, bars and restaurants, hotels and casinos, cash-only businesses such as arcades, and places where people tip in cash such as barbershops and salons. The table turns that list into something you can search.

How do you choose the exact spot for the machine?

Inside a site, choose a well-lit, visible position along the customer's natural path, usually near the entrance or the checkout. The owner controls that space, so the machine placement is part of the negotiation and should be written into the agreement.

Use this short check for every candidate:

1. Is there already a working ATM? Search "ATM" on the same Maps area and walk the site once. A second machine splits the same demand.
2. Do customers stay long enough to need cash? Bars, salons and hotels do. A drive-through kiosk may not.
3. Is the spot visible and safe? Lighting and a view from the counter protect both the machine and the customer.
4. Can you service it? You need to reach the machine during opening hours to load cash and fix faults.
5. Is the owner able to sign? A manager of a chain may not. An independent owner usually can.

Is there still enough demand for cash in 2026?

Yes. Cash is smaller than it was, but it has stabilised and is concentrated in groups you can target. The Federal Reserve 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice reports that cash accounted for 14% of payments in 2025, that 76% of consumers carry cash (on average $69) and that four out of five used cash in the previous 30 days.

The same report shows who relies on cash most. Consumers 55 and older made an average of 10 cash payments a month, against two for consumers aged 18 to 24. Rural residents made nine cash payments a month, against six for urban and suburban residents. Households earning under $25,000 made seven, against five for households earning over $150,000.

For siting, that means a rural gas station, a neighbourhood liquor store or a bar in an older, lower-income area can have steadier cash demand than a downtown cafe where everyone taps a phone. Those are patterns in national averages and may not hold for one block, so verify with a visit.

How do you find ATM locations with Google Maps?

Pick one category and one city, capture every result, rank them, and remove sites that already have a machine. This process takes an afternoon and gives you a named list instead of a guess.

1. Choose a category and a tight area. For example, liquor stores in Phoenix or bars in Tampa. Start with one neighbourhood cluster you can drive in a day. The guide to scraping Google Maps by location explains how to cover a city or a district.
2. Capture the results. Vonsel gathers Google Maps business results as you explore the map, visits the available business websites to find published emails and extra phone numbers, and keeps the businesses on a map in the CRM. What it finds depends on what each website publishes.
3. Rank by signals you can see. Review count is a rough proxy for how many people pass through, opening hours show when cash is needed, and a phone number or website tells you how to reach the owner.
4. Check for existing machines. Run a second Maps search for "ATM" in the same area and mark the sites already covered. Confirm on site, because Maps does not list every in-store machine.
5. Cluster by route. The map view shows which sites sit close together, which keeps your cash-loading and service runs short.
6. Contact the owners. Visit or call the top of the list first, and log the outcome and next step in the CRM.

If you prefer to see the extraction step first, watch the tutorial video on the landing page. The pricing page shows what each plan includes.

How do you estimate what one ATM will earn?

Estimate monthly profit per machine as withdrawals multiplied by the surcharge you keep after the location share, plus any interchange income, minus fixed costs. Fill each input from a quote or a test, not from a blog average.

Because FindLaw cites potential earnings of $500 to $1,000 a month per machine, you can work backwards: how many withdrawals would a site need to reach that, and is that plausible for a store of that size? If the answer is "only on a very busy day", pass.

When you can sort every liquor store in a city by review count and hours, you spend your first month on the few most promising instead of whichever you happened to drive past.

How do you convince a business owner to host your ATM?

Lead with what the owner gains: a machine at no cost to them, a commission on each withdrawal and customers who stay and spend because they can reach cash. Then make the agreement simple. Owners say yes to clear terms, so skip the lecture about interchange.

FindLaw notes that you need permission from the business and property owners, and that a placement agreement should set out who is liable for injuries and what rent or commission you pay. Add the term, who services the machine and what happens if the store closes.

• Walk in at a quiet hour. Ask for the owner or manager and show the commission in writing.
• Call first when the list is long. A short call books a visit. The 30/30/50 rule for cold email helps when you follow up by message.
• Know the owner's world. The guide to selling to restaurants and bars covers timing and decision-makers for the most common hosts.
• Check the property owner. A tenant may need the landlord's consent before a machine is bolted down.

What rules apply to an ATM that charges a fee?

In the US, a fee-charging ATM must show the fee before the customer commits. Under Regulation E, as published in 12 CFR 1005.16, an operator that imposes a fee must give notice of the amount, on the ATM screen or on paper, before the consumer is committed to paying it, and may charge the fee only if the consumer then elects to continue.

Your processor and the machine software normally generate that screen, but test it at install. Beyond that, state rules, insurance, accessibility and sponsor-bank requirements vary, so ask your processor and a local business attorney before you sign your first placement agreement.

Can you sell ATM location research to other operators?

Yes, if the list is specific and current. An operator who wants to grow still has to find sites, and a spreadsheet of named stores with phone numbers, hours, review counts and a map is the work product. The same method applies to other placed-machine businesses; see the guide to vending machine locations, and to site analysis in franchise site selection with Google Maps data.

Sell the research and the intro work, not income promises, because earnings depend on each site and each operator's contracts.