SLA & Uptime Calculator: With Uptime Stats of Hosting Companies

Uptime Calculator

What is Uptime?


Uptime is one of the crucial parameters used to measure the performance of a web hosting platform. In simplest terms, this is the time during which your web host remains up and running or more specifically does not have any downtime.

A lot of times you would come across web hosts providing a specific uptime guarantee like 99.9% or 99.99%. This would help you judge the worst case downtime that your web host might suffer.

Uptime also referred to as web host's availability is usually provided for a period of 30 days.

Enter an SLA percentage to calculate its downtime allowance.

%
Day 1 minutes 26 seconds
Weekly 10 minutes 4 seconds
Monthly 43 minutes 11 seconds
Yearly 8 hours 45 minutes 35 seconds

Service Level Agreements (SLA):


Few web hosting companies offer a Service Level Agreement. An SLA would carry the exact terms about the guaranteed level of uptime.

In most cases, if the web host fails to maintain the required level of uptime, then the web host is liable to provide a refund or hosting credits.

This is an important piece of the agreement since this defines what you would receive as a compensation in case of an exceeding downtime.

The SLA terms and conditions differ from one web host to another and hence it is important to go through all the terms before choosing any hosting platform.

Uptime Guarantees:


Uptime guarantee is definitely important for both the web host as well as the customer. A web host defines the uptime guarantee in multiples of 9 and is defined as a percentage.

A common uptime guarantee provided would be 99.99%, 99.9% or 99%. This is defined for a period of 30 days.

Each uptime metrics defines a specific worst case downtime as well. For instance, a 99% uptime would also mean a worst case downtime of 7 hours and 12 mins.

Similarly, a 99.9% uptime would imply a downtime of 43 mins and 12 sec. This is something that most web hosts offer.

While a 99.99% uptime implies a downtime of 4 mins and 19 sec. Most web hosts do not provide a guarantee above this value.

A Trade-Off Between Uptime and Costs:


While it sounds appealing to choose a web host which guarantees a high uptime, one also needs to consider the pricing. In certain cases, a higher uptime guarantee would mean a higher cost.

This is a common trade-off between uptime and costs and one needs to choose an intermediate solution. It’s practically impossible for a web host to guarantee 100% uptime.

Few web hosts provide good uptime and in most cases provide 100% uptime, but not guarantee a consistent 100% uptime. Based on your business requirement and budget you need to choose the web host.

A web host’s uptime guarantee does provide a sense of relief. However, at the same time, one needs to ensure this does not overshoot your budget.

You can pick a good web host which provides substantial uptime along with other useful features such as backups, cache management, and quick restoration.

Which Web Host Would You Prefer?


A web host provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee on the SLA. This also states the site has to be down for at least half an hour continuously to get an automatic credit. Also stated in the fine print is that you can send a documented downtime recorded at your end. In case this matches with their logs then you get the credit

A web host provides a 99.99% uptime only when you become a part of a service contract. In order to choose this, you would have to opt for a more expensive plan with additional add-ons available to ensure you get the guaranteed uptime.

A web host offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee on the SLA. In case the host fails to maintain the desired uptime, then the credits are directly added to your account. No questions asked. The host computes the downtime and notifies each user publicly, thereby providing a transparent service.

A web host provides 99.99% uptime guarantee to all and also states you are entitled to a credit in case the site is down for more than 15 minutes. Again over here you would require to send a documented proof of the downtime. And then you have a fine print stating that not more than 1 outage per month can be credited.

A web host offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee on the SLA. However, to receive a credit for an exceeding downtime you would have to submit detailed document specifying your website’s downtime. This would be cross-checked by the host before providing any credits. Here you bear the cost and overhead of monitoring the server

A Few Things to Consider:


Uptime guarantees are always overwhelming and eye-catching. However, there are few things which you should consider-

  • A web host’s uptime guarantee does not mean it would not go down. The uptime guarantee is a hypothetical value based on past performance and in-built infrastructure.
  • Read carefully the fine print. It’s better to be safe than to be sorry. Verify each detail of the terms and conditions of service.
  • As a thumb rule do enough research before narrowing down on any specific option. Browse through the web host’s official website to gather more information through reviews.
  • Consider asking existing users of the web host about the performance and scenarios under which they honor the uptime guarantee. By all means get in touch with an industry expert to extract more details.
  • Point of caution, do not completely rely on a site owner’s review. Since if the site owner is not monitoring the website 24/7, then there are chances of missing out on few downtimes.
  • In case you need to submit your logs of the downtime, then consider how exactly would you get the credits. Will an extra unaccounted downtime be also considered while adding a credit.

Uptime Guarantee from Another Perspective:


An uptime guarantee puts you in a safer zone. A web host which needs to pay for an unprecedented downtime is going to be more serious to ensure they maintain the required uptime.

When a web host provides compensation for all its hosted websites, then definitely it is going to ensure your website remains up and running as per the uptime guarantee. Needless to mention, failing to abide by the required uptime can burn holes to their pockets in the long run.

Ensure you choose a web host which can provide an uptime guarantee wherein the worst case downtime is affordable and is within the expected limits.

Chat with the customer support or email them to ensure the uptime guarantee meets your requirement.

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