Pay only for what you need.

Our pricing system is really simple because we don’t believe in large pricing tables that require a math degree to understand.

Why dive with us?

  • We charge only for what you use on a per-day basis
  • We disclose all prices in full
  • Personalized diving in small groups
  • We compensate our staff fairly
  • We protect our environment
Scuba divers smile into camera

Our Pricing System

For any diving event, the costs for one diving day are split up like this:

Day Rate

Rental Equipment

Gas & Materials

Fees & Add-Ons

We charge you based on how many days you dive with us, which (if any) kind of rental equipment you use, and how much gas, materials, and other charges apply. For courses, you can find what is included on the respective course page.

Want something special? Just ask!

Day Rates

CategoryExamplePrice per day/person
Standard RecCourses, Guiding, Training€299
Advanced RecWreck, Altitude, Deep, Custom Courses€399
Standard TecTec Diving€499
PRO-Diver AddonPick your date or extra materials from €50
VIP Course1-on-1 Training, Guiding, SupportIndividual (~Day rate *2)

Standard Rec

The standard day rate is €299 per person.

The rate stays the same whatever you want to do. Course or guiding, theory or diving for fun, it’s all the same. Your diving coach will always be happy to answer your questions, show you cool tricks or skills and practice with you.

If you want to upgrade to a higher tier, you can do so at any time.

Our diving adventures are personalized, so we can’t always say in advance how long a course or event might take. It largely depends on your individual skill and learning speed.

You will find the minimum and suggested duration on each course page.

If you booked guided lake diving but end up practicing buoyancy instead, that’s cool. Started with a navigation dive and ended up diving just for fun? Sounds good.

Advanced Rec

Some courses like wreck or altitude diving require extra preparation, long transits, or special permits. Some of them also involve more risk (such as deep diving in freshwater lakes).

In these cases, the day rate of 399€ applies.

Standard Tec

Technical diving, cave diving, and variations thereof are extremely challenging and as such, the day rate of €499 applies.

Pro Diver Addon

Our Pro Diver option comes at a surcharge of 50-100€ per day (depending on the day rate) and allows you to freely pick the diving dates!

Our course dates are not fixed.

So with the Basic Diver option, you book a course and we’ll let you know when a course can happen (a minimum of 2 people necessary).

The PRO option allows you to enquire about a date. And when you do, we guarantee that a course will take place then, no matter if we have other divers joining or not.

VIP rate

The VIP rate includes 1-on-1 diving with a private guide or instructor and extra value such as underwater photos, extra course materials, and more fun stuff.

Whether you want to dive at 5 in the morning on a Tuesday or 10 at night on a Saturday, we’ll be there.

Rental Equipment

Rental equipment for coldwater diving is available in all sizes for both adults and children. Please note that we need to know in advance if you want a drysuit, as it takes the manufacturer about a week to ship them to us.

If you don’t need any, that’s fine. If you use something, we put it on the tab. Easy, right?

Click here to check out our rental equipment.

Gas Charges & Materials

Both you and your guide/instructor need to breathe underwater. You might also need a line, special equipment, or extra materials, for example in a cavern or wreck. And depending on how much you want to dive, we use up more material and gas.

That’s why we add these costs for you and your diving coach (divided by the number of participants) to your bill. For air, these normally amount up to 20 – 30€ per diving day.

Fees & Add-Ons

Certification Fees

If you want to get a certification card after your diving course, we are happy to send you one. Just let us know and pick a nice photo. Smile! 🙂

On the other hand, if you don’t want one at all, there is no need for you to pay for it.

The certification fee for iac is €49.

Environmentally friendly, biodegradable plastic cards for iac and CMAS courses cost €65.

Best part? Social Diving donates 5€ per card to an environmental NGO out of our own pockets!

Entry Fees

Some venues require entry fees to enter for each diver. We have no control over these and they go directly to them. Please bring the entry fees in cash, as not all of them offer card payments.

These are the fees as of April:

Indoor dive center: €29-49 (depending on the day) / p.p.

Echinger Weiher: €15 / p.p.

Starnberg See: €2 Parking ticket

Blindsee: €25 / p.p.

Transportation (at your own discretion)

Due to legal reasons, Social Diving and its staff may not provide transportation as part of any diving event. For that, we would need a special license like that of bus or taxi drivers.

Therefore, all our prices assume that our guests are able to provide transportation for themselves and the dive instructor or guide to the dive location.

Again, as we are legally prohibited from providing such transportation ourselves, we must charge for any transportation cost occurring to the Social Diving staff (such as taxi or rental car charges) if it is not provided. 

We split the fee evenly among all participants and take the cheapest option available.

You can find deals for rental cars here:

Rental Cars

About our Pricing

A diving course, trip, or adventure will give you memories for a lifetime. We think these memories should be special and will do anything we can to make them so.

If you start looking around on the internet for scuba diving courses and guiding, you’ll find a large variety of prices for “the same” things. Before you deem us (or anyone else) to be exceptionally cheap, expensive, or reasonably priced, check and compare what you get for your money.

It’s a fact that we don’t fall under the “super cheap” category and we don’t want to be there, ever.

Remember: When you pay very little for something, you will get what you pay for…very little.

Cheap prices mean cheap rental gear, crowded courses, inflexible dates, and the bare minimum of training. If the price is all that matters to you, then that’s cool but

This is NOT our approach!

We love diving. And we love working together with our clients and guests to make their diving adventures super special. And the only way we can imagine doing this is by offering:

  • Small groups (1-4 students)
  • Flexible course dates
  • Extra dives at no extra cost
  • 24/7 personal support
  • High-End rental equipment
  • (the same that our instructors use)
  • Diving community during and after the course

Pricing Examples

Open Water Diver – Basic Example

ItemExplanationCost
Course fee Basic Diveronline course, examination fee, rental gear, personal support, skill session in the pool, indoor diving, diving in open water, tank fillings, lake fees€899
Certification FeeOfficial RSTC/EUF certified card, shipping, preliminary card included€49
Entry Fee Pool€29

What others do: Most dive schools around the world offer theory sessions, 1 session in a shallow pool, and 4 open water dives. It can be a great course, with friendly and helpful instructors, and might be relatively inexpensive.

On the downside, you’ll be in a large group of 4-8 people (sometimes even more), receive entry-class rental equipment, and only talk to your instructor during the course itself. You will need to choose from fixed course dates and after the course…that’s it. You receive your certification card and it’s on to the next students.

The first session in the pool will NOT include any diving and instead, you will kneel on the bottom going through a bunch of different skills one after the other before ever doing any actual diving.

What we do: At Social Diving we have at most 2 students in the water per instructor, you pick your own course dates, we offer 5 dives in open water instead of just 4, we do all indoor diving in a special indoor diving center that offers a real diving experience, and much more.

We never kneel on the bottom throughout the course and you will be diving from the first moment in the water until the course is completed.

Others
  • Either online or in-person theory class
  • 1x skill session in shallow pool without diving
  • 4 open water divers
  • Entry-level equipment
  • Instructor support during the course
  • 4-8 students per class
  • Fixed course dates
  • Kneeling on the bottom during dives

Price: 400 – 600€

Social Diving
  • Online course & personal theory review
  • 1x skill session + actual diving in indoor dive center
  • 4-5 open water dives
  • High-end dive equipment
  • Personal support at any time
  • 2-3 students per class
  • Pick your own date!
  • No kneeling ever
  • Personal support throughout the course and after

Price: 899€

Specialty Course Example

Specialty courses are more than just certification cards in your wallet. They should be educational, fun, and not just a way to work towards an even higher certification.

Specialty courses at Social Diving are priced the same as our guided dives according to our day rates.

It doesn’t matter what you would like to learn, in the end, you always get personal dive time with an instructor which we think is worth the same no matter how you decide to use it.

Most specialty courses can be taken as 1,2 or 3-day options, depending on how much you would like to go into detail on the topic.

Why would I book a course for longer than necessary? you might ask. Again, the day rate is the same for guided diving or courses. Isn’t that cool? You can book additional course days and not worry whether or not you will pass the course in 1 or 2 days.

You can just book adventures that you ENJOY!

Guided Diving Example

When you book guided diving with us, you don’t pay for a guide that shows you around, but for an entire diving adventure and the time with your guide.

If you decide last-minute that you would rather do a course than just a dive, no problem. The day rate (see below) includes anything you like to do during your time with us. We don’t judge and we don’t require an additional booking.

We can guide you around but also practice skills, give you tips on equipment, diving, or review theory concepts you might have forgotten.

This also means all our guides and instructors are highly trained and can provide a bunch of different diving services and adventures to you.

Join more than 21,300 readers on our email list for more tips & tricks!
We send out one newsletter per week, every Wednesday.

Subscription Form