In my X post on 2026‑10‑22 I explained why vendors should proactively issue an SLA credit after a serious outage, using a mid‑market $60 k annual contract as a concrete example.
A customer paying $60,000 a year is paying about $165 a day.
Two days of outage therefore cost roughly $330.
A full‑week credit works out to about $1,150.
A full‑month credit is roughly $5,000, which is about 8 % of the $60k renewal.
I argue that issuing any credit, even a modest one, signals accountability and empathy, and its cost is lower than the effort a CSM spends defending the account at renewal.
- Calculate daily cost: annual spend ÷ 365.
Open questions remain around optimal credit tiers for different contract sizes, how to balance credit amounts against support costs, and what formal SLA credit policies leading SaaS vendors currently use.
- Multiply by outage duration for direct impact.
- Choose credit tier (day/week/month) based on severity and relationship value.
- Communicate credit promptly with root‑cause analysis and remediation plan.