Group OW certification

[Tr39NC]

I have a group of 7-9 14-year-olds and 3-4 adult leaders interested in an OW certfication class. What kind of flexibility do instructors have with pricing? I hear PADI gets a cut of each instruction fee or something so they can't be too flexible. What would you expect to pay for such a group? The usual $300 +or- for the complete course?

In Scouting,
Dan

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

teenagers?

They'll charge ya double

 

[wedivebc]

You will need at least 2 instructors and a couple of DMs to handle that group. I would not expect much of a price break since that sounds like it could be a challenging group. Would still be lots of fun though.

 

[Iruka]

Instructors have quite a bit of flexibility if they're teaching on their own, and not where a shop might set the price. Of course, they have expenses & time to consider, and (usually, ha ha) hope to make a profit when they teach. PADI doesn't really get a "cut" from the fees....only indirectly in that books & such are purchases FROM PADI, and then sold (or included in the course fee) to the students. Other than that, PADI charges around $15 for the application for the C-card & photo.

If it turns out they DO get a direct cut, please don't tell them about this message....since I'VE never paid anything to them when I teach a class!

As for pricing, I'm always willing to give a discount for groups...it doesn't take much longer to teach a group than it does one person, so there's normally room there to drop the price. Of course, if the instructor is able to get full price for a group, they'd prefer that....to help make up for those 1 or 2 student classes where they might not make much at all.

It's kind of difficult to actually tell you a "good price"....I know of big operations that charge only $99 for an OW course, but you're required to buy some gear from them, and they're basically expecting to recoup the loss on the class by talking you into buying a BCD, reg, etc and being a future customer on their boat. Fair enough. In Japan, I've heard the going rate is around $700 or so. Prices will vary quite a bit if it's a private course where you get to determine the schedule, or if it's a "we have a class going Wednesday night with 12 other people. Be there or wait till next month" sort of thing. My advice would be to ask for a good deal, and check around to see if there's any other shops locally for comparison. Or, just fly the whole bunch of 'em out here to Guam, and I'll do it for $250 a head, ha ha.

 

[wedivebc]

"....I know of big operations that charge only $99 for an OW course, .......
.....Or, just fly the whole bunch of 'em out here to Guam, and I'll do it for $250 a head, ha ha.

So why not fly them out to the "big operation"?

 

[BrianS]

The Usual $300 for a OW Course? Wow, it's only $140 here.

 

[toodive4]

A class of about 12 people (regardless of age.) You need 1 Instructor and 2 assistants. I'm in MD and I'm an SSI Instructor. If I taught this as a "private" group course, there would be the $225.00 for the course per person ($2700) + $50 each (pool rental fees) for 5 pool sessions ($600) + $100 per person ($1200) course equipment rental fee. That comes to a total of $4500.00 or $375.00 per person.

The $225.00 course fee breaks down like this... $about $57 goes for each students classroom kit, the Instructor (me) is paid $70 per student and the shop owner gets $98.00 per student to help keep his his doors open, the electricty on and feed his family.

In the end the Shop makes $1176.00
Instructor Makes $840.00
SSI Makes $684.00
The College that rents us the pool earns $600.00
The shop I rent equipment from (different than the shop selling the course) makes $1200

Keep in mind there are five pool sessions, thre classroom sessions and at least two days of checkout at the quarry (other place.) This amounts to about 50 hours of time commitment for an instructor... which means I make about $16.80 per hour teaching the class...

NO BS here... just the facts... $375.00 for private group lessons

I have a group of 7-9 14-year-olds and 3-4 adult leaders interested in an OW certfication class. What kind of flexibility do instructors have with pricing? I hear PADI gets a cut of each instruction fee or something so they can't be too flexible. What would you expect to pay for such a group? The usual $300 +or- for the complete course?

In Scouting,
Dan

 

[Iruka]

Hi WeDiveBc....of course, flying them out for the $99 course WOULD be an option. Truthfully, a lot of military & locals go to the big shops. We get a variety of customers from all over the world. Our prices are basically for private classes, and we're able to schedule for our customers' convenience....for example, I had a busy Korean businessman here, and he wanted to plow through the OW material until 1AM one night. Sure, I'd have rather been snoozing by that time, at my advanced age, but within reason we'll try to fit the schedule to what our customers want. I'm not denigrating ANYONE who'd go somewhere else, whether it be for price or for something else. From what I've seen, military guys especially tend to do well in the "big" (8~20 people with multiple instructors) classes....they're used to being told what to do, and used to following instructions from their officers or instructors, and not usually afraid of the water. We normally only have 1 or 2 people at a time (my "shop" is just me & my wife, and we call in other staff as needed for busy days) and don't require or really expect that the divers will be buying gear from us. So, in OUR case, if we had, say one student paying $99, it would normally be 3 days of work, and our direct costs would be the $15 PIC, whatever lunch & snacks cost (we always feed our people!), gas to drive to the beach or boat, and tanks/air. It's kind of like the Walmart/small shop situation....with huge volume, Walmart can offer things for a very low price. A small shop generally can't do that...economies of scale & that sort of thing. So, a small shop (retail or diving) must be able to offer SOMETHING that will encourage people to pay more. Our regular price is about half of the price in Japan, and since most of our customers are Japanese (due to its proximity to Guam) they have no qualms at all about our price. One thing we can offer them, for example is that I speak Japanese, and my wife IS Japanese....and we can schedule to fit their (short) vacations. For them to go to the $99 shop, they'd have to spend a couple weeks here in Guam, and learn English before they got here.

Essentially, for a lot of people going for the lowest price would be fine (although I'm not really sure what is included in that price....often there will be "add ons") but for others there might be reasons to pay more (language, convenience, flexibility, etc.) I've occassionally sent English-speaking customers to the big shops if we weren't able to reach an agreement on price. No hard feelings....I don't expect the tourist-oriented Duty Free & Givenchy shops to get mad at me when I go to K-mart, ha ha.

(after writing this, I saw that you're a "former LDS owner"....so you probably knew all this already. Sorry )

 

[Tr39NC]

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I found a great company down at the coast. How could I track down an individual instructor locally? I searched PADI, yellowpages, college lists, and haven't found the right search phrase.

 

[wedivebc]

(after writing this, I saw that you're a "former LDS owner"....so you probably knew all this already. Sorry )

Yeah but most other people reading this thread aren't so you're cost breakdown is not wasted.
My point was that different economies demand different rates for a variety of different reasons. Some of which you outlined. I had a shop in a small town, where the shops in the big city charged $99 as well. I had customers say, "why should I pay $350 here when I can get it for $99 in Vancouver" I (usually) patiently explained that those prices did not include equipment rental, books, certs or probably even air fills whereas my course included everything and if they wanted to go to Vancouver to take the course to go for it.