SLA Template: What to Put in a Service Level Agreement (2026)

What a service level agreement is A service level agreement, or SLA, is the part of a contract that sets measurable targets for the service and says what happens when those targets are missed. It turns vague promises like "reliable support" into numbers both sides can check: how much uptime, how fast you respond, how fast you fix, and what credit the customer gets when you fall short. An SLA can be a standalone document or a schedule attached to a larger master service agreement or subscription agreement. Either way it does three things: it defines the service levels, it defines how they are measured, and it defines the remedy when they are not met. This page is general information, not legal advice. Confirm your own position before you rely on specific wording. ## A service level agreement template you can copy ```

SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT This SLA forms part of the agreement dated [date] between [Provider] and [Customer]. 1. SERVICES COVERED This SLA applies to [name the service, for example "the hosted platform at example.com"]. 2. DEFINITIONS "Uptime" means [definition]. "Downtime" means [definition]. "Business Hours" means [for example 09:00 to 18:00, Monday to Friday, local time at [place]]. "Incident" means [definition]. Measurement period is each calendar month unless stated otherwise. 3. AVAILABILITY TARGET The Provider will make the Services available [for example 99.9%] of the time in each measurement period, excluding Scheduled Maintenance. 4. SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE The Provider may take the Services down for maintenance with [for example 48 hours] notice, within [a stated window]. Scheduled Maintenance does not count as Downtime. 5. SUPPORT AND RESPONSE TIMES Incidents are ranked by severity:

• Critical (service down): respond within [time], work continuously.
• High (major feature down): respond within [time].
• Normal (minor issue): respond within [time]. Response time is the time to acknowledge, not the time to resolve, unless stated. 6. SERVICE CREDITS If availability falls below the target in a measurement period, the Customer may claim a credit:
• Below [99.9%] but at or above [99.0%]: [for example 5%] of the monthly fee.
• Below [99.0%]: [for example 10%] of the monthly fee. Credits are the Customer's sole remedy for missed targets and must be claimed within [for example 30 days]. 7. EXCLUSIONS Downtime does not count where it is caused by the Customer, by a third party outside the Provider's control, by a force majeure event, or during Scheduled Maintenance. 8. REPORTING The Provider will report actual service levels [monthly / on request]. 9. REVIEW The parties will review this SLA [annually]. SIGNED Provider __________ Customer __________

- Confusing response time with resolution time, then being held to a fix deadline you never agreed.
- No exclusions, so you owe credits for outages caused by the customer or a third party.
- No claim deadline or process, which leads to disputes months later.
- Targets copied from a bigger provider that your infrastructure cannot sustain. ## How jurisdiction and context change things SLAs are largely a commercial matter, so the numbers are negotiable rather than fixed by law. What varies is how the surrounding contract treats liability and consumer rights. In the United Kingdom and European Union, consumer protection and unfair-terms rules can limit how far a provider caps its liability to consumers. In the United States, enforceability turns on the contract and the state. In India, it is governed by contract law. Where the customer is a consumer rather than a business, extra protections may apply, so confirm the local position. ## Keeping SLAs under control An SLA rarely lives alone. It hangs off a master agreement or a subscription, it is measured every month, and it is renegotiated at renewal. The work that outlasts signing is drafting clear targets, catching a credit or exclusion clause that is one-sided before you sign, and tracking the obligations and review dates across every customer or supplier you have. That is the same problem businesses face across all their contracts, which is why drafting, understanding, editing, tracking, and governing a document like this can live in one AI workspace tuned to how your company contracts and built on Claude, with transparent per-seat pricing. [Adira](https://adiralaw.com) is built around that single-workspace idea for business contracts. For a single SLA, the template above is a solid start; the habit worth keeping is holding every service commitment and its review date where you can find it.