--- title: "What Is an SLA? Service-Level Agreement Explained" description: "An SLA is a vendor's contractual commitment on uptime, support response and remedies. See what a streaming platform SLA should cover and how to read one." url: "https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/sla" markdown_url: "https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/sla.md" category: "Platform" updated: "2026-10-05" --- # What is an SLA? An SLA (service-level agreement) is the part of a contract in which a vendor commits to measurable levels of service, such as uptime and support response times, and states what the customer receives if those levels are missed. ## What a streaming platform SLA covers - Availability: the percentage of time the service is up, measured monthly - Scope: which components count, such as playback, sign-in, the CMS and the API - Support: how quickly the vendor responds, by severity of the problem - Resolution or escalation targets for critical incidents - Remedies: service credits when a target is missed - Exclusions: planned maintenance, third-party failures and events outside the vendor's control ## What uptime percentages mean - 99.5%: up to about 3.6 hours of downtime in a 30-day month - 99.9%: about 43 minutes - 99.95%: about 22 minutes - 99.99%: about 4 minutes ## How to read an SLA Look at what is measured and how. Availability of a status page is not the same as viewers being able to play video. Check whether maintenance windows are excluded, whether you must claim a credit yourself, and whether the credit is capped at a fraction of the monthly fee. An SLA compensates; it does not prevent. For a live event that cannot be repeated, the vendor's architecture, monitoring and event support matter more than the credit you would receive afterward. ## SLA on RentAnOTT The RentAnOTT Scale tier, from $999/month, includes an SLA and a named manager. Growth has priority support and Launch has email support. Monitoring, alerting, backups and disaster recovery are built in on every tier. [See pricing](https://www.rentanott.com/pricing). ## Related terms - [Managed OTT](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/managed-ott) — A managed OTT platform, also called OTT SaaS, is streaming software that the vendor hosts, operates and updates on your behalf for a recurring fee. You run the content and the business; the vendor runs the technology. - [Auto-scaling](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/auto-scaling) — Auto-scaling is the automatic adjustment of computing capacity to match demand. When load rises, more servers are started; when it falls, they are shut down. For a streaming service it is what keeps sign-in, playback and payment working through an evening peak or a live event. - [Self-hosted OTT](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/self-hosted-ott) — A self-hosted OTT platform is streaming software that you license, usually for a one-time fee and sometimes with source code, and then install and operate on your own cloud account or on-premise servers. - [Multi-CDN](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/multi-cdn) — Multi-CDN is the practice of delivering video through two or more content delivery networks at once, with a switching layer that sends each viewer, or each request, to whichever network is performing best for them at that moment. - [Quality of experience](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/quality-of-experience) — Quality of experience (QoE) is the measure of how well video playback works from the viewer's point of view. It is tracked through a small set of metrics collected by the player: how quickly video starts, how often it stalls, how often it fails and what picture quality is delivered. - [Peak concurrency](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/peak-concurrency) — Peak concurrency is the highest number of viewers watching a service at the same moment within a period, such as a day, an event or a month. It is the figure that capacity, and many platform plans, are sized against. - [OTT platform](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/ott-platform) — An OTT platform is the software and infrastructure a business uses to run its own streaming service. It covers content management, encoding, delivery, the video player, subscriptions and payments, apps and analytics. ## Further reading - [Security and reliability](https://www.rentanott.com/features#security) - [White-label streaming platform buyer's guide](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs/white-label-streaming-platform) - [OTT solution guide](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs/ott-solution) ## Frequently asked questions ### What does SLA stand for? SLA stands for service-level agreement. ### Is a higher uptime percentage always worth paying for? Only if downtime costs you more than the difference in price. A service with live events or advertising commitments has more at stake than a small on-demand library. ### What is a service credit? A discount on a future invoice, given when the vendor misses a committed level. It is usually a percentage of that month's fee. All 163 terms: [Streaming and OTT glossary](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary). ## Book a demo Tell RentAnOTT what you are launching. The team walks through the platform and maps the path to go-live around your catalog, markets and revenue model. Book a demo: https://www.rentanott.com/contact ## More from RentAnOTT - [Home](https://www.rentanott.com/index.md) — What RentAnOTT is, what every plan includes, and how launch works - [Features](https://www.rentanott.com/features.md) — Every core feature and optional add-on - [Pricing](https://www.rentanott.com/pricing.md) — Platform tiers, apps, add-ons, usage rates and example bills in INR and USD - [Free tools](https://www.rentanott.com/tools.md) — OTT app builder and calculators for streaming revenue, bandwidth, bitrate and pricing - [Insights](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs.md) — All streaming business articles - [Glossary](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary.md) — Definitions of streaming and OTT terms - [Book a demo](https://www.rentanott.com/contact.md) — Talk to RentAnOTT about your launch Full site in one file: https://www.rentanott.com/llms-full.txt