275-Location Texas ATM Route, Bexar County

$695K

SDE

3.3x

Multiple

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Full Editorial Writeup

This is a Texas ATM route of roughly 275 installed machines spread across active merchant locations throughout the state, generating approximately $695,000 in annual cash flow. The sale transfers the physical ATMs, the underlying merchant agreements, transaction history, reporting systems, and the operating arrangements that keep the route running. At 275 locations, this portfolio sits well above the typical few-dozen-machine route that trades hands, which gives it meaningful diversification: no single merchant location materially moves the overall numbers.

The revenue model is a classic surcharge business. Each cash withdrawal at an owned ATM throws off a fee, and the economics are driven by foot traffic, machine placement quality, and transaction volume per location. A professional operating team currently handles cash loading, servicing, maintenance, and merchant support, and that team continues post-sale. The owner's role is oversight only: reviewing monthly reporting, monitoring location performance, and deciding on growth moves.

The business is being sold because the owner is retiring. Growth levers are straightforward and already proven in-state: add placements within existing coverage and acquire smaller Texas routes to fold into the back office. No real estate is included and there is no owner financing, so a buyer should expect to fund the full $2.295M at a 3.3x cash flow multiple with outside capital or equity.

Why we like it

Cash flow of $695K at a 3.3x multiple is reasonable for a route business this size, and the earnings are spread across roughly 275 locations so no single merchant can tank the numbers. That diversification is the single most attractive feature here versus the typical 30-machine route that lives or dies on one busy bar or convenience store.
ATM surcharge income is genuinely sticky and semi-recurring: the machines sit under long-standing merchant agreements and throw off fees on every withdrawal without re-winning a sale. Cash usage persists through downturns, particularly in the gas station, convenience, and small-retail footprints these machines typically live in.
The route is already professionally managed, with the operating team handling cash loading, servicing, and merchant support, and that team stays after closing. This is as close to a true semi-absentee cash-flow asset as traditional SMB gets, with the owner's role limited to monthly reporting review and growth decisions.
Scale is a moat you cannot buy quickly: it takes years of signing merchants and letting locations build volume to reach 275 placements. A buyer inherits that accumulated density and can bolt on smaller Texas routes using the same back office, compounding fee income without starting from zero.

How to improve it

Pull a per-machine transaction and surcharge report in the first 30 days and rank all 275 locations by net profit. Cull or relocate the bottom-decile dead machines and redeploy that hardware into higher-traffic sites, which raises blended revenue per terminal without adding units.
Audit and raise surcharge pricing where the local market supports it. Many route owners leave fees static for years; a modest bump at high-volume locations drops almost entirely to cash flow since servicing costs are fixed.
Negotiate the interchange and processing arrangement. At 275 machines you have volume leverage to push for better rates from the processor and sponsor bank, and even a few basis points of improvement scales across every transaction.
Build an acquisition pipeline for smaller Texas routes, as the listing itself flags consolidation as the top growth lever. Folding sub-50-machine routes into the existing operating team and reporting system is accretive because the overhead is already paid for.
Add placements within current coverage areas by targeting new merchant locations the field team already drives past. Incremental machines on existing routes carry low marginal servicing cost and directly expand the surcharge base.
Formalize and extend merchant agreements where terms are short or month-to-month. Locking in multi-year placement contracts protects the asset base and makes the route far more financeable and sellable later.
Benchmark uptime and cash-outage rates by machine. A machine that is empty or down earns nothing, so tightening the cash-loading schedule and fault response at top locations recovers lost transactions that go straight to the bottom line.

Diligence notes

Revenue is not disclosed, only the $695K cash flow figure, so demand the full P&L and a bridge from gross surcharge income to net. Verify what expenses (processor fees, cash replenishment interest, vault cash cost, armored transport, repairs) are deducted and whether the operating team's cost is fully loaded into that $695K.
Confirm whose cash fills the machines and how vault cash is financed. If the current owner floats the cash, a buyer needs working capital or a cash provider relationship, and rising interest rates on vault cash directly compress the economics of a route this size.
Scrutinize machine-level concentration and location churn. Even with 275 sites, pull trailing transaction trends to confirm counts are stable, identify how many locations have closed or been lost in the past 24 months, and verify the merchant agreements actually transfer to a new owner.
Vet the professional operating team's contract and dependence. The thesis relies on them staying post-close, so understand their compensation, whether they are employees or a third-party servicer, and what happens to the business if that relationship ends.
Assess regulatory and compliance exposure: ATM registration, ADA compliance, EMV upgrade status, and Windows OS currency on the machines. A fleet needing EMV or OS upgrades represents a hidden capex liability that should be priced into the deal.
Confirm the age and condition of the roughly 275 physical machines. Hardware has a finite life, so estimate the replacement schedule and annual maintenance capex, since the 3.3x multiple assumes the equipment keeps running without a large near-term reinvestment wave.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →