Coffee Vending Machine Rentals: Costs and Pricing Discussed

Getting all the information on the internet regarding product features is often an easy task however getting the pricing and costs of things is often much more difficult. When it comes to finding out the options of a rental coffee machine it is often no different. In this post we will try cover all the points which we feel one should consider in order to make an informed decision on which vending machine is right for you.

When renting a coffee vending machine, one needs to consider 4 primary things in order to make the best decision.  These things are cost, rental term, size and features.

Coffee Machine Rental Term

We feel the term of the coffee machine rental should be looked at even before the actual cost of the rental. The longer your rental term, the more inflexible your contract and the greater your “risk is”.

Imagine starting with a supplier and finding out in the first week that your staff don’t enjoy the coffee and that you are forced to endure this unhappiness for 36 months. Not cool.

The rule of thumb is that the longer the rental term is, the lower the monthly rental but the higher the risk and obligation. To see our take on long term rentals, please watch our video here (The importance of flexibility)

Rental terms also come in two varieties: Bank Financed and Company Rentals

1)      Bank Financed Rental Terms are contracts where the bank is actually financing your machine and not the coffee company itself. These are much more difficult to get out of and often involve yearly escalations. Also because a third party is financing the machines (the bank in this case) you often can’t change your machine type during the term of the contract.

2)      Company Rentals are coffee machine rentals financed by the coffee company itself. These are often more flexible and enable you to change packages and coffee machines within the rental term. That is if you start with a vending machine and half way into your contract you decide you would rather have an automatic machine you can easily swop machines on a company financed rental whereas this is often impossible to do on a bank financed rental

Coffee Machine Rental Costs

The cost of a coffee machine rental depends on three primary things:

• Term
• Features
• Size

Typically the longer the term is the lower the rental costs are. One should expect to pay around 2.5% of the machines value as a monthly rental. That is if a machine cost is R20,000 to purchase, one can expect to pay around R500 per month to rent a machine on an average rental term of 2 years. If the rental term is 1 year you can expect to pay closer to R750 per month and if the rental term increases to 3 years you can then expect to pay around R400 per month.

The number of features on a coffee vending machine contribute a lot to the cost of the machine and the coffee machine rental. Having a bean to cup vending machine as opposed to an instant vending machine means you can expect to pay an extra 20%. Also a machine which is able to do hot chocolate and cappuccino is around 25% more expensive than one which can only do cappuccino.

Lastly the size of a vending machine also determines the cost of the machine. Big floor standing machines with no more capabilities than their small table-top counterparts can often cost double as much.

Average Coffee Vending Machine Rental Costs (on a 1 year rental):

Table Top Instant Coffee Vending Machines Rental Average Cost – R490 P/M

Table Top Bean Coffee Vending Machines Average Rental Cost – R590 P/M

Floor Standing Instant Coffee Vending Machines Rental Average Cost – R1190 P/M

Floor Standing Bean Coffee Vending Machines Average Rental Cost – R1390 P/M

Coffee Vending Machine Sizes:

Coffee vending machines do vary in sizes and this affects the cost of them greatly. The benefits of a bigger coffee vending machine is that it has more storage capacity. The disadvantages of having a larger vending machine is that it considerably more expensive than a smaller unit and doesn’t enable the user to produce coffee any quicker than the smaller unit.

We always suggest rather increasing in the number of coffee machines as opposed to increasing the size of the coffee machines.

Coffee Vending Machine Features:

The more features one has on a vending machine the greater the cost. Coffee vending machines are often described by the number of ingredients which they can hold.

2 canister vending machines : usually contain milk and coffee and enable one to make coffee and cappuccinos without any sugar options
3 canister vending machines: usually contain milk, coffee and hot chocolate and can make all coffee drinks including cappuccinos as well as hot choc and chocacinos

4 canister vending machines: can make the whole range of coffee and hot chocolate options as well as allowing the user to add sugar options.

Adding features such as coffee machine stands and pump and drum systems can add around R150 per month.

Upgrading from instant to beans can add around R300 per month.

Conclusion:

Choosing the right coffee vending machine for you is as simple as going through the above process and choosing the size, features,rental term and price which suits you.