PADI vs SSI, from instructor / dive shop owner point of view

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I'm pretty sure it is SSI. I say that based upon the "find a dive op" maps on the SSI website. In some countries, they have more shops than PADI (but only a few).

I believe NAUI is #3. Not sure where SDI/TDI sit. It would be interesting to see actual numbers of dive shops (though some will be multi agency), instructors (also many will be multi agency) and number of certifications each year.
Padi #1 by a wide margin, SDI and SSI are close global to each other and depends on market who is bigger regionally. NAUI is far behind them.
 
In
I was speaking generically about the potential for a variety of issues. A dive shop owner who decides to use a very obscure agency exclusively may have trouble finding instructors.
lessbthey are an instructor trainer and can cross over as needed.
 
It's about 2.5 years old (so very out of date, I'm sure), but this article from Deeper Blue ranks PADI at about 60-75% of diver certifications (I'm assuming that only means OW), followed by SSI, having recently knocked NAUI out of 2nd. The top five are rounded out by RAID and BSAC. In the year 2001, in the US, 98.2% of divers are trained by PADI, SSI, or NAUI and the rest are slit up amongst 20 different agencies.

I did my OW with PADI and everything since with SSI. PADI required everyone to purchase printed materials (in 2013) individually and was more strict about the instructors following a script. Ours went a little off script one morning to teach us about BP/W, but otherwise you had to do skills in a particular order. SSI does all of the classroom training online followed by in class and there is nothing to buy and the instructors get a little more leeway in what order they teach each skill and how much time to dedicate to it. SSI also allows instructors to do combo dives, like a deep dive to a wreck can count for both classes, whereas I'm pretty sure PADI frowns on that. At the end of the day, the instructor matters a lot more than the agency, though. Some instructors will sign off on mastery of a skill if you do it once, others will want to see real mastery; some instructors will coach you and train you, others think they need to be a drill sergeant and just yell at you.

SSI does not require a certain brand, but they do require that you train in affiliation with a shop. If you shop is partnered with a certain brand or two (mine is SP and Atomic), instructors will almost certainly be required to wear that gear, usually from the shop's rental fleet, while training. We have several instructors who are both SSI and PADI instructors. They wear different gear if they are training independently (as PADI) than they wear if they are doing a shop class (with SSI).
Yeah..no. NAUI didn’t recently get knocked out of second unless you think a decade plus ago is recent. I don’t believe that RAID is in the top 5, no chance
 
A dive shop owner who decides to use a very obscure agency exclusively may have trouble finding instructors.
Or the shop owner could look at associating with a smaller agency as a great source of revenue - doing crossovers for his shop. Or I have seen shops do crossovers for instructors for free. Other shop owners might look at issuing smaller agency instructor certs as a captive market advantage for them. Other shops might view associating with a smaller agency as part of their market differentiation. They might promote it as smaller agency xyzzy makes their shop different / better (even if it might not be true) than other shops that all teach a mass produced version of diving.

The truth is that from the shop owner perspective, associating with a smaller agency is really a non-issue, and can even be looked at as an advantage ... depending on how they sell it ...
 
Did a discover dive in HI and liked it. Helped my wife after some surgery and after she was well she gave me scuba lessons. Shop/Instructor was SDI. Picked because he and his wife were personal friends. After OW I took some more SDI stuff and also some PADI and SSI. Just whatever interested me. Nobody tried to talk me into lots of gear, but then I wanted my own gear from early on so a willing buyer. There were a few specialties that required a small bit of gear; SMB, lift bag, alternative gas supply for SOLO. Had good instructors most of the time and competent all the time. I have seen potential divers walk into all three kinds of shops wanting to talk about getting certified. My impression was that most of them had no real reason why they chose that shop other than the shop was convenient or a friend liked it.
 
It does not come up every time, but I definitely have people inquire about PADI certification. Have never had anyone ask about anything else, except one time regarding a Public Safety training interest.

Since I am purely PADI part of that can be self fulfilling, but not all of it.
 
It does not come up every time, but I definitely have people inquire about PADI certification. Have never had anyone ask about anything else, except one time regarding a Public Safety training interest.

Since I am purely PADI part of that can be self fulfilling, but not all of it.
I don’t think anyone can dispute the excellent marketing job that PADI has done.

No other agency has created in some people’s minds that their agency is equivalent to scuba certification
 
It does not come up every time, but I definitely have people inquire about PADI certification. Have never had anyone ask about anything else

I too have had a few people ask me about “getting their padi.” They said it that way because they wanted to demonstrate that they knew a little bit more than nothing about scuba - mistakenly thinking that padi=dive certification. So I just treated them with respect - as I would normally, and acknowledged that they knew something about scuba. I told them, “Great!” And quickly explained that what they really wanted was certification, and that padi was just one of many brands of certification, and I could help them get certified - but under another brand. they have never cared - because they didn’t really know anything about it in the first place. The only other ones that might ask for a specific agency are usually under the mistaken impression that they have to start all over if they switch brands - and when they discover that they don’t have to start over, they usually don’t care either...
 
In some places (rarely), you have a limited list of agencies that your shop has to be a part. For example, I'm an SDI instructor and plan on opening a dive op in Greece. But in Greece, I cannot just open an SDI shop as they haven't gone through whatever process is required. The two SDI shops I have found on the TDI/SDI website, one is also PADI, the other CMAS.

But I would expect that Greece is not typical. It just happens to be where I'd like to open an op.
 
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