Tony Talks Business
How ATMs Make Money
Who actually owns the cash machine in the corner of the gas station? Where does the $3.50 fee go? And why does your own bank charge you again for using it?
This is how ATMs actually make money, and why most of them are not owned by a bank at all.
The numbers in this video
$3.22The average surcharge, the fee that goes to whoever owns the machine, as measured by Bankrate in 2025. A record.Source: Bankrate checking account survey, September 2025
$4.86The average total for leaving your bank's machines: the $3.22 surcharge plus $1.64 from your own bank.Source: Bankrate checking account survey, September 2025
278,000About how many American cash machines independent operators ran in a 2018 study presented to Congress, against about 192,000 run by banks. That is nearly six in every ten.Source: National ATM Council / UNF Location Study, 2018
$1.17The average surcharge in 1997, the year after Visa and Mastercard dropped their ban on the fee.Source: CRS report RS20193
12.95%The conversion fee one travel writer photographed on a cash machine abroad that offered to charge in dollars.Source: One Mile at a Time
$6.6BAbout what Brink's, the armored truck company, agreed to pay for NCR Atleos in February 2026, including its debts.Source: GlobeNewswire, 26 February 2026
Every number has a source
Chapters
- 0:00The Machine
- 1:12The Receipt
- 1:38The Guess
- 2:23The Ban
- 3:56The Fee
- 4:41The Owners
- 5:05The Maths
- 5:40The Swipe
- 6:34The Loyalty
- 7:14The Shop
- 7:52The Bar
- 8:44The Vault
- 9:36The Route
- 10:43The Network
- 11:28The Takeover
- 12:50The Conversion
- 14:02The Lawsuit
- 14:30The Verdict
- 15:06The Rule
What we left out
Claims we found and could not stand behind, so they are not in the video.
An exact figure in cents for interchange, the fee your bank pays the machine's side. Sources disagree and it varies by network, so the video only says it is usually cents.
Crime against cash machines, such as jackpotting and explosive attacks. It is off the money angle of this video.
Sources
13 pages the figures in this video were read from.
