If you're running a business that depends on SaaS tools — and who isn't these days? — you're probably entitled to service credits that you're not claiming. Most companies are leaving money on the table, sometimes thousands of dollars annually, simply because they're not tracking vendor SLA violations.
The Hidden Cost of Downtime
When GitHub goes down for 30 minutes, or when your CRM crashes during peak hours, it's not just an inconvenience. These outages often breach the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) you've signed with your vendors, entitling you to compensation in the form of service credits.
Here's the problem: most businesses have no systematic way to track these incidents, interpret their SLA terms, or follow up with credit requests.
Why Manual Tracking Fails
We've talked to dozens of companies, and the pattern is always the same:
- Inconsistent monitoring: Teams only notice major outages, missing shorter but still compensable incidents
- Complex SLA terms: Each vendor has different thresholds, measurement windows, and credit calculations
- Time-sensitive claims: Many SLAs require credit requests within 30-60 days of an incident
- Documentation burden: Proving downtime impact requires data most companies don't readily have
The Automation Advantage
Automated SLA monitoring solves these problems by:
- Continuously watching vendor status pages and incident reports
- Automatically comparing downtime against your specific SLA thresholds
- Calculating potential credit values based on your contract terms
- Generating ready-to-send credit request emails with supporting documentation
Beyond the Money
While recovering service credits is valuable, automated SLA tracking provides additional benefits:
- Vendor accountability: Regular credit claims encourage better service reliability
- Contract negotiations: Historical SLA data strengthens your position in renewals
- Internal reporting: Clear visibility into which vendors are meeting their commitments
Getting Started
If you're ready to stop leaving money on the table, start by auditing your current vendor contracts. Identify which services have SLA guarantees and what the credit terms are. Then consider whether you have the time and systems to track this manually — or if automation might be worth the investment.
The goal isn't just to recover credits you're owed (though that's nice). It's to ensure you're getting the service reliability you're paying for, and holding your vendors accountable when you're not.