It's the first question most office managers ask us, and it's the right one: is our office even big enough to justify a machine? Nobody wants to bring one in and watch it sit half-used.

Here's the honest answer: there's no magic headcount. A machine's success isn't decided by how many people are on the payroll — it's decided by how many are actually in the building on a normal day, how much they pass the machine, and whether what's in it fits them. Two offices with the same headcount can get completely different results. Let's break down what actually matters, and what the options are if you're on the smaller side.

It's not headcount — it's "people in the building, walking past, every day"

The number that matters isn't how many people you employ. It's how many are physically in the office on a typical Tuesday, and how concentrated they are.

A 20-person shop where everyone's on-site all day, eating lunch in one break room, will out-sell a 50-person office that's half-empty on hybrid days with people scattered across two floors. Same headcount on paper; very different machine.

So before anything else, count the real daily number — the people actually there, near where the machine would go. That's the figure worth planning around, and it's the one hybrid and remote work has quietly changed for a lot of offices.

Rough guidance (with the honest caveats)

If you want a starting frame, the rough number we use is around 25 people on-site daily and up — and treat that as a loose guideline, not a rule:

Around 25 on-site daily and up: You're in machine territory. The conversation shifts from "if" to "what mix" — snack, drink, healthy, or a combination.
Under ~25 on-site daily: A full snack-and-drink machine often struggles to earn its spot. This is usually where an office coffee setup, or a small subsidized snack station, serves the team better than a big machine. More on that below.

And the number bends with the room. A tight, captive group that's all in one place and passing the machine every day can make it work at the lower end; a team spread across two floors, or half-remote on any given day, needs more people on paper to get the same result. Concentration and daily presence matter as much as the raw headcount — so count the real daily number near where the machine would go, not the payroll.

Smaller office? You've still got good options

If you're under the line for a full machine, that doesn't mean the answer is "nothing." It means a different setup usually fits better:

Office coffee first. For a lot of smaller teams, a good coffee setup is the anchor amenity — used every single day by nearly everyone — and it delivers more goodwill per dollar than a snack machine ever would at that size.
A subsidized micro-market or snack station. Instead of a coin-op machine that needs volume to pay for itself, a smaller curated selection you partially subsidize can work at headcounts where a full machine wouldn't. Your team gets the perk; the math works because you're treating it as a benefit, not a profit centre.
A smaller machine, right-sized. Not every setup has to be a full bank of machines. Sometimes one well-placed unit with the right mix is exactly right.

The wrong move is forcing a big footprint into a space that can't feed it, then concluding "vending doesn't work here." The right move is matching the setup to your actual daily numbers.

The fastest way to get a real answer

You don't have to guess at this. The quickest way to know what fits your office is to have someone who does this every day look at your real in-office headcount, your space, and how your team moves through it.

We're family-owned and based in Maple, and we help offices across Vaughan and the surrounding area — Woodbridge, Concord, Thornhill, Kleinburg and along the 400/407 corridor — figure out the right setup for their size. Sometimes that's a machine; sometimes it's office coffee and a small snack station instead. Either way we'll tell you straight.

Book a quick 15-minute consult or request a quote and we'll give you an honest read on what actually makes sense for your team — no pressure to put in something that won't get used.