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How to Get Diving & Hull-Cleaning Clients (Marketing Guide)

By DiverHire Team

Start where the boats are: one or two marinas near you and the boat owners in them. Ads can wait. Get your certificates, insurance and local permits in order and write a clear price list. Then introduce yourself to marina offices, set up a Google Business Profile as a service-area business, and ask every client for a review in a way Google allows. Put hull-cleaning clients on a schedule: in a Port of San Diego survey of 32 in-water hull cleaners, 78% said they clean boats on a set schedule rather than when fouling demands it (Port of San Diego survey).

This updates our 2025 guide. The five phases overlap, and how long each takes depends on your permits, season and marinas. We removed unsourced prices, commissions and marketing returns, and a tip that breaks Google's rules: discounts for reviews. New to the work? Start with our guides to making money diving and starting a hull-cleaning business.

Phase 1: Paperwork and a clear offer

What will marinas and clients ask to see?

Have these ready before you knock on a marina office door:

Your service menu

Write down what you do and how you charge before anyone asks. Our hull cleaning service page shows what clients expect a cleaning to include. Base prices on what established operators in your region publish, not on guesses. For reference:

Packages make buying easy, such as a hull-and-propeller package or a pre-season inspection, clean and minor repairs. Price them from your own costs, and only offer emergency call-outs if you can answer them. For deposits, cancellations and what is billable beyond bottom time, see the divers' part of our planning and pricing guide. What clients expect to pay is in our hull cleaning cost guide.

Phase 2: Work your local marinas

Marina offices and yacht clubs

A four-week plan for your first marinas:

  1. Week 1: List every marina and yacht club you can reach in a short drive. Find out which have their own rules for outside contractors.
  2. Week 2: Visit in person and ask for the dockmaster or harbour master. Ask what they require from outside divers: insurance, permits, check-in, working hours, where you can park and stage gear.
  3. Week 3: Offer to clean or inspect one of the marina's own boats, with photos and a short report, so they can see your work. If you do it free, don't tie it to a review.
  4. Week 4: Follow up. Ask whether you can leave cards, be on their contractor list, or be mentioned to owners who ask for a diver.

If a marina asks for a referral fee, check its rules, put the arrangement in writing and be open about it with the boat owner.

Boat owners

Meet owners at yacht clubs (ask whether they take associate members), boat shows, marine supply stores and waterfront restaurants with docks. Talk about their boat, not your pitch: when the bottom was last cleaned, when the zincs were last changed, and photos of a hull you did last week. Don't walk the docks inspecting other people's boats uninvited; ask the marina office how it wants contractors to find work.

People who already talk to boat owners

Join or visit marine trades associations, local dive clubs, fishing associations and the chamber of commerce, and speak at a boat club meeting or join a waterfront cleanup day. Ask yacht brokers, marine surveyors and mechanics whether they ever need a diver's photos or video of a hull.

Phase 3: Get found online

Google Business Profile

A Google Business Profile lets you appear when owners search Google and Google Maps for a diver nearby. Google allows one for businesses that travel to their customers, so a diver who works at clients' boats is a service-area business. Under Google's guidelines, you should:

A simple website

A one-page site is enough to start. Include:

Use the words people type. Google's own suggestions show phrases such as "hull cleaning [city]", "boat bottom cleaning [city]", "underwater hull cleaning cost", "how often to clean boat hull" and "underwater recovery services near me". Answer those questions in short, plain pages with your photos.

Social media

Underwater video of real work (a fouled hull before and after, a recovered phone, a worn zinc next to a new one) shows what you do; post it where local boat owners are. On Facebook, join local boating groups, answer questions helpfully and follow each group's rules on self-promotion. Ask clients before you post their boat.

Directories and marketplaces

List yourself on Google, Yelp and Angi, any marine directories for your area, and diver marketplaces such as DiverHire. Keep your name, phone number and service area the same everywhere.

Phase 4: Reputation and reviews

Do work you can show

Turn up when you said you would, with clean, working gear, and send before and after photos with a short written report after every job. If you notice something outside the job, such as a worn zinc or fishing line round the shaft, send a photo and let the owner decide; don't do unrequested work.

How to ask for reviews without breaking the rules

The old guide suggested 5 to 10% off the next service for a review. Don't. Google's help page says "Offering incentives, like free or discounted goods or services, in exchange for customers to post reviews, change reviews, or remove negative reviews is considered fake & misleading content and is strictly prohibited" (Google Business Profile Help). Google's policy also bars businesses from asking only happy customers, pressuring people to review on the spot and telling them what to write, and it removes reviews from people with a conflict of interest, such as family, staff or business partners (Google Maps content policy).

In the US, the FTC's reviews rule, in force since 21 October 2024, bans fake reviews, incentives that openly or by hint require a positive review, and suppressing reviews with groundless legal threats or intimidation; courts can impose civil penalties for knowing violations. The rule doesn't ban other incentives, but the FTC warns undisclosed ones can break the FTC Act (FTC), and Google bans them all. Offer none.

A process that stays within those rules:

  1. Finish the job and send the photos and report.
  2. Ask every client, not just the happy ones, with your Google review link or QR code (Google suggests both), and don't tell them what to write. Ask for Google reviews only: Yelp tells businesses not to ask anyone for reviews (Yelp).
  3. Reply to reviews briefly and politely, including the bad ones, and never pressure or threaten a reviewer. Google advises against copy-paste thanks and sales pitches in replies, and notes that a mix of positive and negative feedback "often feels more trustworthy."

Referral rewards

A credit for referring a new client is not payment for a review: keep it apart from any review request, and never make it depend on one. If a client who got a credit recommends you in public, such as in a boating group, ask them to mention the credit.

Phase 5: Grow

Add services

Natural add-ons: above-water washing, help at haul-out and launch, and fitting small equipment below the waterline. Higher-value work is documentation: video inspections for owners and photos for surveyors or insurers, who still make the call (see our underwater inspection and marine surveying pages). If you hold a local BMP certificate, say so; in Marina del Rey it is required.

Expand to the next marina cluster

Pick the next nearest group of marinas, check their rules and what divers there charge, and meet the offices before you advertise. If your water is too cold for part of the year, you could work a warm-water area then: check its permits, and don't stretch your Google Business Profile to cover it, as Google allows a second profile only for a location with its own service area and staff.

Your first hire

Once you employ divers, your legal duties change. In the US, OSHA's commercial diving standard applies to "every place of employment" where diving is done (OSHA 1910.401), and on scuba a standby diver must be available whenever a diver is in the water (OSHA 1910.424). In Ontario, O. Reg. 629/94 sets duties for employers. In Great Britain, a dive contractor must notify HSE and work to the Diving at Work Regulations (HSE). For a wage benchmark, Job Bank's Ontario band for underwater workers is CAD 21.00 to 42.79 an hour, median 30.00 (2023–24), though it covers a wider group of technical trades that includes commercial divers (Job Bank).

Look for a certified diver with reliable transport who is good with clients, and have them shadow you until they know your standards for client contact and reports.

Marketing mistakes to avoid

What to track

Every week: new enquiries, how many became jobs, average job value, new reviews. Every month: where each client came from, what it cost you to win them, and how many clients came back. After three months, your own numbers will tell you more than any benchmark.

A 90-day plan

Days 1–30: set up. Certificates, insurance, permits, a price list, your Google Business Profile and a one-page site. Visit your first marinas. When jobs come in, send photos and a report, and ask every client for a review.

Days 31–60: widen. Visit more marinas, go to a boat show or club event if one is on, start posting short work videos, and list yourself in directories.

Days 61–90: review. Check which channel brought each enquiry and job, drop what isn't working, and decide what to try next: another marina, a referral credit or one added service.

Finding work through DiverHire

DiverHire won't give you a client base; the old version of this guide promised a "ready network of clients", and that wasn't true. It is a new marketplace in public beta with only a few jobs and divers on it so far. You can create a free diver profile with your certificates, photos and service area, and bid on jobs clients post at diverhire.com/jobs. DiverHire takes no fee on jobs: you and the client agree the price and payment directly, and uploaded certificates get a check-mark badge after an admin reviews them. Check every job and client yourself, and treat DiverHire as one channel alongside everything above.

Sources

Last updated: September 2026. Prices and rules change; confirm with local providers.

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