Writing a Service Level Agreement (SLA) for your Hosting Agency

Why Every Agency Needs an SLA

An SLA moves your business from "doing favors" to "professional partnership." It prevents disputes by clearly stating: "If I don't respond in 4 hours, here is what happens." It also justifies your higher "Managed Service" pricing.

3 Key Components of a Strong SLA

1. Uptime Commitment

Most hosts promise 99.9%. Define exactly what this means. Does it include "Scheduled Maintenance"? Usually, maintenance is excluded from the uptime calculation.

2. Response Time Objectives (RTO)

Define your speed for different priorities:

• Emergency (Site Down): 1 Hour.
• Important (Bug): 4 Hours.
• General (Question): 24 Hours.

3. Remedies & Credits

What happens if you fail? Instead of a full refund, most SLAs offer "Service Credits" (e.g., 5% off the next month's bill for every hour of downtime).

Avoiding Over-Promise

Never promise "100% Uptime." Even Google and Amazon have outages. Promise a realistic target (99.9% or 99.95%) and focus on how fast you will respond to fix the issue.

Making it Legal

While you can start with a template, always have a local legal professional review your SLA to ensure it complies with your country's contract laws. At AmanaFlow, our Reseller partners get access to SLA Templates designed for the hosting industry.

Start Your Agency the Right Way

FAQ

Q: Do I need a separate SLA for each client?
A: No. You can have a "Standard SLA" on your website that applies to everyone, and only create custom ones for high-paying enterprise clients.

Q: How do I track my uptime to prove it to clients?
A: Use tools like UptimeRobot or Pingdom and provide a public "Status Page" for transparency.