Part of our complete guide: how to find vending machine locations.
- The template is printed in full below, twelve clauses on one page, with a copy button. Free, no email needed to read it.
- One page beats twelve. Short agreements get signed the same week. Long ones go to legal and stall.
- Define gross sales in the commission clause. Total money collected less sales tax. Undefined gross is where most commission disputes start.
- Keep indemnity mutual. Each side covers its own negligence. A one-way indemnity hands you claims you had no part in.
- It is a starting point, not legal advice. Fine for your first placement. Have a lawyer in your state read it before it goes out to twenty properties.
The free vending machine contract template is printed in full below, twelve clauses on a single page, and you can copy it straight off the screen. It covers the parties, the term, where the machine goes, commission and when it gets paid, service, power, insurance, termination, removal, relocation and exclusivity. Fill the bracketed fields, delete what does not match your deal, and treat it as a starting point rather than a legal opinion.
Every clause is explained underneath in one paragraph of plain English, so you know what you are agreeing to rather than trusting a document you found. For the strategy behind the document, which terms to push on and which to concede, read how vending contracts work. If you would rather not fill brackets by hand, VendBuddy’s Contract Creator generates the same agreement pre-filled for your placement type in about a minute.
The template
Two practical notes before you send it. Put it in a PDF, not a Word file, because a Word file invites edits you will not notice. And attach your Certificate of Insurance naming the property as additional insured, since that attachment is usually what actually ends the conversation.
What each clause is doing
1. Parties. Use legal names, not trading names. If you operate as an LLC, the LLC signs, because that is the entire point of having one and a contract signed in your personal name can undercut it. Include the exact site address, since management companies run multiple properties and “the building on Third” is not an address. Naming a contact for notices matters more than it looks: the termination clause runs on written notice, and notice to a person who left the company two years ago is a dispute waiting to happen.
2. Term. Three years with automatic one-year renewals is the standard shape, and the renewal is protection rather than a trap as long as the exit is 90 days on both sides. A shorter term is fine for a test placement. What you want to avoid is a one-year term with no renewal language, because that quietly turns into a month-to-month arrangement the day it expires and nobody notices until a new manager decides to shop the site.
3. Placement. Name the spot, not just the building. “First floor break room, north wall” is a different placement from “the loading corridor,” and moving a machine 60 feet can cut its volume badly. The second sentence, that the machine stays your property and nobody else opens or moves it, is the one that stops a maintenance team relocating a cooler over a weekend.
4. Commission and payment. The rate is the part everyone negotiates and the definition is the part that causes arguments. Write gross sales as total money collected less sales tax. Without that line, an operator means gross and a property manager sometimes means something closer to profit, and you find out in month four. Set the interval, usually within 30 days of quarter end, and commit to a per-machine report so the number is checkable. What rate to put in the bracket depends on the site type, and the bands are in vending machine commission rates.
5. Access and service. Commit to standards you can hit on your worst week, not your best one. Weekly restocking and a 24-business-hour service response are normal and defensible. Four-hour response times are how a placement gets terminated for cause after one bad Tuesday. The refund line, that miscollected money comes back within seven days, is small and it is the thing that keeps an office manager on your side after a machine eats somebody’s five dollars.
6. Utilities. The location pays for power, which is the norm and rarely questioned. A glass-front cooler uses roughly 5 to 10 kWh a day depending on model, room temperature and door traffic, so the argument is worth less than the time spent having it. The useful half of this clause is the outlet requirement. Writing down “dedicated grounded outlet within six feet” is how you avoid an install day where the only socket is across the room and already running a microwave.
7. Insurance and indemnity. Carry general liability, name the property as additional insured when they ask, and keep the indemnity mutual: each side covers claims from its own negligence. The paragraph to strike is the one-way version, where you indemnify the property for all claims arising from the machine regardless of cause. That version puts a slip on a wet floor near your cooler on your policy. Mutual indemnity is standard, and a property manager who will not agree to it is telling you something.
8. Termination. Two paths, same document: convenience on 90 days for either side, cause on 30 days with a written description of the breach and a chance to fix it. The prorated refund of prepaid commission is one sentence and saves an email chain. The longer version of this clause, including what to do about narrow renewal windows and escalators, is in the termination clause post.
9. Removal. Termination and removal are separate events and the gap between them is where machines get unplugged and shoved into service corridors. Thirty days, business hours, you pay to move it and repair what the move damages, and the location keeps it powered and in place until you collect it.
10. Relocation and successors. Buildings get renovated and sold. Sixty days notice plus an offer of comparable space keeps a renovation from ending a good placement. The successor sentence is the most valuable line in the whole template, because the usual way operators lose a strong site is not a dispute. It is a new management company arriving with a preferred vendor and no record you were ever there.
If you want the templates done for you instead, the starter kit has the checklist and the fill-in templates in one download. It is a one-time $27, not a subscription.
11. Exclusivity. Optional, and worth asking for mainly at larger sites or multi-machine placements. Keep the scope to what you actually sell and name the carve-outs yourself: cafeteria, coffee service, micro market, tenant-owned equipment. Whether to include it at all is covered in the exclusive vending agreement post.
12. Signatures. Two signatures with printed names, titles and dates. Get the title, because a leasing agent who signs without authority is a problem you inherit. Attach the Certificate of Insurance as Attachment A. No notary needed for most placements, though some corporate landlords require a verified e-signature trail.
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Start building free →Four ways operators break a good template
- Sending it as an editable file. A Word document comes back with a changed commission rate and a struck indemnity paragraph, and half the time nobody flags it. Send a PDF.
- Promising service they cannot deliver. A four-hour response time on a site 40 minutes away is a termination clause you wrote against yourself.
- Leaving gross undefined. One missing sentence in Section 4 causes more commission disputes than every other clause combined.
- Signing personally instead of as the entity. If you formed an LLC, sign as the LLC. Otherwise the paperwork is doing nothing for you.
What to do with this
Copy the template, fill the brackets for the placement in front of you, and send it as a PDF the same day the location asks, while the yes is still warm. If you are sending more than a handful, spend an hour with a commercial lawyer in your state on the insurance and indemnity language before it goes out at volume.
To skip the brackets entirely, generate it in the Contract Creator. And if you are not yet at the point of handing anyone an agreement, the 60-second readiness quiz will tell you which step is actually next.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a free vending machine contract template?
Yes, and one is printed in full on this page. It is a one-page placement agreement covering the parties, the term, the placement, commission and payment timing, access and service, utilities, insurance and indemnity, termination, removal, relocation, exclusivity, and signatures. Fill the bracketed fields, delete anything that does not match the deal you made, and have a lawyer in your state read it before you use it across a route. A free template is a starting point, not a legal opinion.
Most first agreements are two pages, not twenty. The contracts walkthrough lays out the clauses that actually matter for exclusivity, including the termination language operators forget about until they need it.
How long should a vending machine contract be?
One page is the target and two is the ceiling. Property managers sign short agreements the same week and send long ones to legal, where they sit. Every clause in the template on this page earns its place because it answers a question that otherwise gets decided by whoever is standing in the hallway: who owns the machine, when you get paid, who supplies power, what happens when they want it gone. Anything past that is usually a lawyer template written for a different industry.
Do you need a lawyer for a vending machine contract?
Not for the first one, and yes before the tenth. A one-page placement agreement on a single machine is low enough stakes that a good template plus your own reading is a reasonable risk. Once the same document is going out to twenty properties, one bad indemnity paragraph is repeated twenty times, and an hour of a local commercial lawyer beats finding out through a claim. Insurance requirements and equipment rules also vary by state, and a template cannot know yours.
What should be in the commission section of a vending contract?
Three things, and the second one is where disputes come from. The rate, the definition of what the rate applies to, and when payment is due. Gross sales should be defined as total money collected less sales tax, not as profit and not as an undefined gross, because an operator and a property manager mean different things by that word. Add the payment interval, usually within 30 days of the end of each quarter, and say that a per-machine sales report goes out with it.
Who pays for electricity for a vending machine?
The location, in almost every placement agreement, and the template on this page says so. The amount is small enough that arguing about it costs more than the power does: a modern glass-front cooler runs somewhere in the range of 5 to 10 kWh a day depending on model, ambient temperature and how often the door opens, which at typical commercial rates is single-digit dollars a week. Write it down anyway, along with the outlet requirement, so nobody discovers on install day that the only socket is 40 feet away.
Does a vending machine contract need to be notarized?
Almost never. Two signatures and a Certificate of Insurance are what a normal property manager wants, and adding a notary requirement slows down a deal that was ready to close. The exceptions are some corporate landlords and multi-site management companies whose own process requires a notarized signature or a verified e-signature trail. If yours does, they will tell you, and a remote online notarization handles it without anyone driving anywhere.
Related reading: vending machine contracts 101, the termination clause explained, exclusive vending agreements, vending machine commission rates, the vending business plan template, and the vending machine insurance guide.