00Start Here & The Reality Check
Where every dollar of a vend goes, the order that keeps you out of trouble, and the risk limit you sign before spending anything.
- 00-Start-Here-and-The-Reality-Check.pdf
Vending Machine Route LaunchBag
Place your first vending machines without buying someone else’s mistake.
Score a location before you chase it, inspect a machine before any money moves, and keep comparing what it promised with what it actually vends.
Real pages from the bag. Open one to read it.
Introductory price $29. $39 starting Oct 25. Introductory price through October 24, 2026. From October 25, 2026, the price is $39. One purchase, yours to keep.
Checkout on Payhip. Your download link arrives by email right after payment. Refundable until you download, final after that (refund policy).
What’s in the bag
Numbered in the order you’ll use them. One guide that teaches the work in the order it happens, one connected workbook the route runs on, everything a host sees, and the cards you carry with both hands full. Five files, and the workbook does the job six separate trackers would have done badly.
01The Vending Playbook
The whole business in order, from what you are actually buying to the deals to walk away from.
- 01-The-Vending-Playbook.pdf
02The Vending Workbook
The file the route runs on. One dated home for every rate and fee, feeding a location score, an inspection verdict, and the gap between what a machine promised and what it did.
- 02-The-Vending-Workbook.xlsx
03Host Kit
Everything a host sees, from the approach to the placement agreement, each with a note on why every line is there.
- 03-Host-Kit.docx
04Route Cards
Seven cards to carry: the survey, the inspection, the service round, and fault triage with the safety line.
- 04-Route-Cards.pdf
- 5files
- 57PDF pages
- 1spreadsheet
- 1Word file
- Researched August 2026
All 5 file names
- 00-Start-Here-and-The-Reality-Check.pdf
- 01-The-Vending-Playbook.pdf
- 02-The-Vending-Workbook.xlsx
- 03-Host-Kit.docx
- 04-Route-Cards.pdf
All 5 files are in the ZIP; nothing is held back for an upsell.
A closer look inside
Pages and spreadsheet views from the files you download, not mockups. Open any one to read it.
What you’ll be able to do
Each one names the file that does it.
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Tell a good location from a busy one
Traffic is not demand. Score the things you can compare (regular population, dwell time, alternatives, shifts, visibility, product fit, distance), then let five disqualifiers override the score outright, because a site with nowhere to plug a machine in scores nothing.
Playbook ch. 3 · Workbook · Locations tab
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Find out what the site physically requires
The half beginners skip: a suitable dedicated outlet where the machine will stand, and a doorway and floor route that will pass something measured in hundreds of pounds. These are the checks that cannot be made from a desk, and they decide whether a site is possible at all.
Playbook ch. 3 · Route Cards · site survey
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Win the placement before you buy anything
Who actually decides, what a host really wants fixed, the four forms a commission can take and when each makes sense, the site survey, a one-page proposal written from their side, and a placement agreement covering the terms that cause arguments.
Playbook ch. 4 · Host Kit
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Inspect a used machine before you pay for it
Seven checks where a failure ends it, including whether every selection vends and whether the machine can take a card reader at all, plus four that come off the price. Then the total acquisition cost, because the asking price is one line of eight.
Playbook ch. 5 · Route Cards · Workbook · Machine Inspection tab
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Know what a vend actually leaves you
Price, minus product cost, minus your state’s own sales-tax treatment, minus card processing, minus commission, minus spoilage and refunds, minus the monthly fees, minus the repair reserve, minus the time and fuel of the visit. Every line computed from your numbers.
Playbook ch. 2 · Workbook · Machine Economics tab
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Get the sales tax right, which is not price times rate
States treat vending sales in genuinely different ways: by category, on a share of gross receipts, or exempt below a price threshold that can change when you start accepting cards. The workbook has four treatments and the guide has the call that tells you which is yours.
Playbook ch. 10 · Workbook · Rates & Assumptions tab
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Run a service round you can actually repeat
The same order every visit (counters, restock with rotation, cash, clean, test-vend, log), plus fault triage with a hard line at refrigeration and sealed electrical, and the two habits that keep a placement.
Playbook ch. 8 · Route Cards
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Answer the question a route owner lives with
Is this machine at this location worth keeping, improving, moving or exiting? Machine-level accounting per month, a verdict that will not answer before three months, and one that distinguishes a cost problem from a demand problem, because those have opposite fixes.
Playbook ch. 9 · Workbook · Machine P&L tab
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Recognize the deal you should walk away from
The pattern regulators have prosecuted in this exact industry, why paid locators are structurally misaligned with you, and the two documents a seller of a business opportunity is required to hand over, a request that ends most bad conversations.
Playbook ch. 11 · Route Cards
Who it’s for
- You have seen vending online, you have a few thousand dollars you could put at risk, and you want to know what the work actually is before you spend it.
- You cannot yet tell a good location from a busy one, or a working machine from an expensive paperweight.
- You want the arithmetic of a single vend with every cost in it, rather than a number somebody put in a video title.
- You have a vehicle, you can lift, and you can commit to a repeating slot every week.
Who it’s not for
- You want something genuinely hands-off. This is a route with a vehicle in it, and the bag writes the weekly workload out in hours rather than implying it away.
- You want to buy a franchise, a package or a “ready-made route” from an advertisement. The bag has a chapter on why, and what regulators have done about it.
- You want micro markets, fresh food, vape or specialty machines. Different capital, different rules, deliberately out of scope.
- You already run a route and want scaling strategy, or you want to hire and manage drivers.
Six phases, one gate
Start Here gives you the roadmap, and every file shows where you are on it. Phase 3 is the gate: the location stops being an unknown before significant money moves.
Read the Playbook chapter for the phase, fill the Workbook tab it points to, and move on. The Route Cards are printed and carried from the first site visit; the Host Kit is what you fill in once and use with every placement after that.
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Decide if this is your business
You can describe the money shape and the weekly workload out loud, and the amount you are prepared to lose is written down and signed.
Start Here · Playbook ch. 1–2 · Workbook · Rates & Assumptions tab -
Find and qualify locations
Prospects scored, the physical checks done on the best of them (power, doorway, floor route, access), and a shortlist you can defend to yourself.
Playbook ch. 3 · Workbook · Locations tab · Route Cards -
Resolve the location risk
A placement agreed on terms you understand (commission form, electricity, access, service, damage, termination, removal) before significant money moves.
Playbook ch. 4 · Host Kit · Workbook · Locations tabLocation risk resolved -
Buy and install the right machine
A machine that vends every selection, takes cash and cards, fits the site and the doorway, bought at a total cost you calculated, then installed, filled, priced and selling.
Playbook ch. 5–6 and 10 · Workbook · Machine Inspection and Machine Economics tabs · Route Cards -
Run it and read it
A repeatable service round, a product mix improving from sales evidence rather than opinion, and a monthly number that tells you what this machine actually earns.
Playbook ch. 7–8 · Workbook · Route & Service, Product Performance and Machine P&L tabs · Route Cards -
Keep, improve, move, exit, or add machine #2
A decision made on your own evidence rather than on how the machine feels, and an expansion gate that machine #2 has to pass.
Playbook ch. 9 · Workbook · Machine P&L tab
What it doesn’t do
- No revenue, profit or income figure: not per machine, not per month, not per location type. Every published figure in this industry comes from a company selling machines, software or placements, and they contradict each other.
- No payback period. The workbook computes what your own assumptions imply and labels it as exactly that. “Recoup your investment in six months” is a claim regulators have prosecuted in this industry.
- No national permit or tax answer. Requirements vary by state, county and city and by what the machine dispenses, so the bag gives you four calls and the exact words instead of a table that would be wrong somewhere.
- No machine brand rankings, and no locator service recommended as a way to find locations. The bag explains why paid locators are structurally misaligned with you.
- No repair instruction beyond triage. Refrigeration systems, sealed electrical and bill-acceptor internals are a call, not a fix, and the bag says so in three places.
How it was made
- Researched in August 2026 from the sources that actually publish the rules: the FDA for vending calorie labeling, the FTC for business-opportunity enforcement and its disclosure rule, five state revenue departments for how differently vending sales are taxed, and state and county health-licensing guidance for what triggers a food license.
- The scope was set by the regulator rather than by preference. What triggers a food license is what the machine dispenses, and packaged, shelf-stable snacks and canned drinks are the lightest case, so that is the business this bag teaches, and micro markets, fresh food, bulk and specialty are each named and excluded.
- Machine dimensions, weights and electrical requirements come from manufacturer and placement specifications; payment compatibility and costs from the payment providers’ own documentation. Everything volatile lives on one dated workbook tab, with who to ask when you check it again.
- The workbook is generated from code and tested with 45 scenarios, including a strong location, a weak one, a high commission, a heavy card-processing burden, a low-volume machine against fixed monthly fees, a product-cost increase, high spoilage, a repair event, a route-distance problem, and healthy gross sales with poor actual contribution.
- The whole bag was written against a facts contract assigning every number, rule and boundary to exactly one file, and a scripted cross-file check at QC confirmed no revenue figure, payback claim, commission rate or benchmark had leaked into the prose.
Made and supported by Frog Labs LLC, the company behind LaunchBag.
More on the process: how a LaunchBag is made.
Before you buy
The questions people ask about this bag. More on the support page.
What exactly do I get, and how?
A ZIP with 5 components in 5 files: 3 PDF guides (57 pages total), 1 spreadsheet (.xlsx, eight tabs) and 1 editable Word document containing nine separate documents. Checkout is on Payhip. The ZIP is on screen and in Payhip’s email right after payment; keep the email, and if you ever lose it we re-send the files free.
Is vending passive income?
No, and the bag is straight about that on its first page rather than at the end. Every week a machine needs stock bought, loaded and driven; restocking with date rotation; cash pulled; glass cleaned; a test vend; a card reader checked; the odd refund; a word with the host; and the numbers written down. A good route gets faster and more predictable. It does not become hands-off. What the bag does is make that workload visible before you spend money, and make the machine you place worth the trips.
How much will a machine make?
Nobody can tell you that honestly, and this bag does not try. The published figures come from companies selling machines, route software or placements, and read side by side they contradict each other, and this is the industry where the FTC has repeatedly prosecuted sellers for earnings claims. What you get instead is the arithmetic of one vend with every subtraction in it, and a workbook that computes your machine’s own contribution from your own numbers.
Do I have to find the location before I buy the machine?
It is the strongly recommended order, and the bag explains why in practical terms: the footprint, the doorway and floor route, the power available, the audience, the price points and whether you need a card reader are all decided by the site. Choose the machine first and you are guessing at all six. But it is a default rather than a law. There are four legitimate exceptions, including already controlling a site and buying a machine that comes with its placement, and the bag names them. The principle underneath is what matters: don’t commit significant capital while the biggest variable is still unknown.
What kind of vending does this cover?
Packaged, shelf-stable snacks and canned or bottled drinks, in snack, drink and combo machines. That scope was chosen by the licensing rules rather than by preference: what triggers a food license is what the machine dispenses, and packaged non-perishables are the lightest case. Micro markets, refrigerated fresh food, bulk vending, vape and specialty machines are each named with a line on what changes, and left out.
What permits do I need?
That depends on your state, your county, your city and what your machine dispenses, and any national answer would be wrong somewhere. Chapter 10 gives you four calls with the exact words for each: your city or county clerk, your state revenue department, your local health department, and two insurance quotes. It takes an afternoon. The bag also states the federal calorie-labeling rule precisely (it applies to operators with 20 or more machines, or those who register voluntarily), because beginner content routinely overstates it.
Can I check a used machine without knowing anything about vending machines?
Yes, and that is what the inspection card is for. Seven checks where a failure ends it (it powers up, every selection vends, the coin mechanism and bill acceptor take and return money, it speaks MDB so a card reader can be fitted, refrigeration holds temperature, and it fits the doorway), plus four that come off the price. Every one is something you can do standing in front of the machine in half an hour. The bag does not try to make you a technician, and it draws a hard line at refrigeration and electrical work.
What if my machine is not making money?
That is what the Machine P&L tab is for, and it is the difference between owning machines and running a route. It gives four answers: KEEP, IMPROVE, MOVE or EXIT. The distinction that matters is between a cost problem, where sales are fine but something between gross and contribution is leaking, and a demand problem, where the machine is fine and the site cannot support what the visit costs. Those have opposite fixes, and optimizing a site that cannot pay is the most common way people waste a year.
Is any of this legal or tax advice?
No. The placement agreement is a well-built starting point covering the terms that actually cause arguments, not a contract drafted for your state, and it says so on the page. Anything that depends on where you live points you at who to ask and what to say.
Get the Vending Machine Route LaunchBag
5 files: 3 PDF guides (57 pages), 1 spreadsheet for Excel or Google Sheets, and 1 editable Word file. One download, yours to keep.
Introductory price $29. $39 starting Oct 25. Introductory price through October 24, 2026. From October 25, 2026, the price is $39.
By clicking “Get the bag” and completing checkout on Payhip, you agree to LaunchBag’s Terms and refund policy. This is a digital download: refundable until you download a file, and all sales are final after that, with the exceptions in the refund policy. Not legal, tax, insurance, or safety advice, and the templates are not a substitute for the advice of an attorney; no income promises.
Sold by Frog Labs LLC. To receive our legal name and business address by email, write to contact@froglabsllc.com.
- Pay on Payhip’s checkout page.
- Payhip emails your download link to the address you used, right away.
- Unzip and open 00 Start Here & The Reality Check. The files are numbered in reading order.