Downtime Credit

Not legal advice. Independent of every vendor named here. Summaries are this site's reading; the vendor decides every claim.

Guides / What counts as downtime

What counts as downtime

An outage you felt may not be downtime under the agreement. This guide quotes how four vendors define it and lists what each leaves out. The vendor decides every claim. Not legal advice.

The definition in each agreement

Each vendor defines downtime in its own words. Your monitoring tool or your own users may count a different outage from the vendor.

Microsoft: Exchange Online

“Downtime: Any period of time when users are unable to send or receive email with Outlook Web Access. There is no Scheduled Downtime for this service.”

Service Level Agreement for Microsoft Online Services, dated 1 November 2026, last checked 12 November 2026.

Google Workspace

"Downtime" means, for a domain, a period of time during which the user web interface for the applicable Covered Services used by Customer has more than a five percent user error rate. Downtime is measured based on server side error rate.

Google Workspace Service Level Agreement, dated 31 August 2026, last checked 13 November 2026.

Atlassian Cloud

“Downtime Minute” occurs when the Error Rate in a given minute is greater than 5%.

Atlassian Cloud Service Level Agreement, dated 30 April 2026, last checked 13 November 2026.

“Error Rate” means, over a given 1-minute period, the percentage of Customer’s requests to Covered Experiences resulting in an error out of Customer’s total requests to those Covered Experiences.

Atlassian Cloud Service Level Agreement, dated 30 April 2026, last checked 13 November 2026.

GitHub Enterprise Cloud

“Downtime” is a period of time where either (i) the error rate exceeds five percent (5%) in a given minute for a Service feature or (ii) the Service was unavailable as determined by a combination of GitHub’s internal and external monitoring systems.

GitHub Online Services SLA, dated 1 June 2026, last checked 13 November 2026.

“In addition to these Service-specific definitions, Downtime does not include Scheduled Downtime, and Downtime does not include unavailability of a Service due to limitations or exclusions identified in Section 4 (“Limitations and Exclusions”).”

GitHub Online Services SLA, dated 1 June 2026, last checked 13 November 2026.

What each agreement leaves out

The lists below summarize the exclusions this site found in each agreement. The agreement itself is the final word.

Microsoft: Exchange Online

Bought through a reseller such as GoDaddy
Your provider, or the partner they buy from, asks Microsoft for you. Pick that in the statement.
Open and Open Value licences (bought through Microsoft volume licensing)
The credit is days of service, not money off the fee.
Trials, previews and betas
Not covered.
Free plans
Not covered.
Personal and Family plans
We found no credit term for Personal and Family plans. These plans are not under this business SLA. Not verified in Microsoft's consumer terms.

Google: Google Workspace

Google Workspace Essentials Starter edition
The agreement does not apply to it.
Services whose own documentation excludes this agreement
Not covered.
Gmail Labs functionality
Not a covered service.
Problems caused by force majeure
Not covered.
Problems caused by your own equipment or third-party equipment
Not covered.
Problems caused by abuse or other behaviour that breaks the agreement
Not covered.

Atlassian: Atlassian Cloud

Free, Standard, sandbox, or Beta products
Only Eligible Cloud Products on Premium or Enterprise plans are covered.
Accounts in breach or with overdue payments
Account must be paid up and product provisioned.
Routine scheduled or emergency maintenance
Excluded under the Atlassian Maintenance Policy.
Force majeure or internet access problems outside Atlassian's control
Not covered.
Customer equipment, network connections, or third-party products
Not covered.

GitHub: GitHub Enterprise Cloud

Previews or purchases made with a subscription credit
Not covered.
Rate limits, performance degradation, or latency without unavailability
Not covered.
Factors outside GitHub's reasonable control, including external network failures
Not covered.
Third-party software, hardware, or inadequate bandwidth
Not covered.
Throttling of suspected abuse or compromised accounts
Not covered.

Sources

Quotations are copied word for word from the agreement named under each one. Text outside a quotation is this site's reading. A vendor decides every claim. This is not legal advice.

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