Service Level Agreement

Version 1.0  ·  Last updated: 10 April 2026  ·  English only

1. Scope

This SLA applies to the following Hotbox services:

• VPS Hosting — all Virtual Private Server plans (Nano, Micro, Standard, Pro, Elite);
• Web Hosting — all managed web hosting plans (Starter, Pro, Business, Agency).

The SLA does not apply to: free trials, beta services, add-on services explicitly excluded from SLA coverage, or services suspended due to AUP violations or non-payment.

2. Uptime Commitment

Hotbox guarantees a monthly uptime of 99.9% for covered services, calculated on a per-calendar-month basis.

Uptime is defined as the percentage of time during which the covered service is fully operational and accessible to the customer:

Uptime % = ((Total minutes in month − Downtime minutes) ÷ Total minutes in month) × 100

A 99.9% monthly uptime corresponds to a maximum of approximately 43 minutes and 49 seconds of unplanned downtime per calendar month.

3. Measurement Methodology

3.1 Monitoring

Uptime is measured using external monitoring probes that perform connectivity checks at regular intervals (minimum every 5 minutes) from at least two geographically distinct locations. The monitoring system tests:

• For VPS: ICMP reachability and TCP port responsiveness on the primary IP address of the VPS;
• For web hosting: HTTP/HTTPS response codes (a 5xx server error sustained for more than 5 consecutive minutes constitutes downtime).

3.2 Downtime Definition

"Downtime" means a period during which the service is completely unreachable or returns persistent server-side errors, as detected by the external monitoring system. The following do not constitute downtime:

• Scheduled maintenance windows (see Section 5);
• Connectivity issues between the customer and Hotbox not caused by Hotbox infrastructure;
• Intermittent packet loss not exceeding 50% over any 5-minute window;
• Outages caused by or attributable to the customer (see Section 7).

3.3 Monitoring Records

Hotbox maintains monitoring logs for a minimum of 12 months. Customers may request a summary of monitoring data for their service for any calendar month by contacting [email protected].

4. Scheduled Maintenance

4.1 Notice Requirement

Scheduled maintenance that may result in service interruption will be announced to affected customers at least 48 hours in advance by email. The notice will include:

• Date and time of the maintenance window (with time zone);
• Expected duration;
• Nature of the work being performed;
• Expected impact on the customer's service.

4.2 Maintenance Limits

Scheduled maintenance shall not exceed a total of 4 hours per calendar month. Time during scheduled, pre-announced maintenance windows is excluded from uptime calculations and does not count as downtime for SLA credit purposes.

4.3 Emergency Maintenance

In cases of critical security vulnerabilities or imminent hardware failure, Hotbox may perform emergency maintenance with less than 48 hours notice. Emergency maintenance will be announced as soon as reasonably practicable and will be kept to the minimum duration necessary. Emergency maintenance time is treated as scheduled maintenance and excluded from SLA calculations, but Hotbox will use reasonable endeavours to minimise customer impact.

5. Service Credits

5.1 Credit Schedule

If the monthly uptime for a covered service falls below 99.9% due to reasons attributable to Hotbox, the affected customer is entitled to a service credit applied to their next invoice, calculated as follows:

Monthly Uptime Achieved	Downtime in Month	Credit
99.9% or above	≤ 43 minutes 49 seconds	No credit (SLA met)
99.8% – 99.89%	44 min – 1 h 27 min	10% of monthly fee
99.7% – 99.79%	1 h 28 min – 2 h 11 min	20% of monthly fee
99.6% – 99.69%	2 h 12 min – 2 h 55 min	30% of monthly fee
99.5% – 99.59%	2 h 56 min – 3 h 39 min	40% of monthly fee
99.4% – 99.49%	3 h 40 min – 4 h 22 min	50% of monthly fee
99.3% – 99.39%	4 h 23 min – 5 h 6 min	60% of monthly fee
99.2% – 99.29%	5 h 7 min – 5 h 49 min	70% of monthly fee
99.1% – 99.19%	5 h 50 min – 6 h 33 min	80% of monthly fee
99.0% – 99.09%	6 h 34 min – 7 h 17 min	90% of monthly fee
Below 99.0%	> 7 h 17 min	100% of monthly fee

The credit is calculated as 10% of the monthly service fee for each full 0.1% by which the measured uptime falls below the 99.9% SLA threshold, up to a maximum of 100% of the monthly fee.

5.2 Credit Nature

Service credits are applied as account credit against the customer's next invoice. Credits are not refundable as cash and have no monetary value outside of Hotbox services. Credits may not be transferred to another account.

5.3 Maximum Credit

The maximum credit for any single calendar month is 100% of the monthly service fee for the affected service. Credits are calculated per service and do not aggregate across multiple services.

6. How to Claim an SLA Credit

6.1 Claim Process

To request an SLA credit, the customer must submit a claim by email to [email protected] with the subject line "SLA Credit Request — [Service ID] — [Month Year]".

The claim must include:

• The customer's account identifier or email address;
• The service(s) affected;
• The approximate dates and times of the downtime experienced;
• Any supporting information (error messages, screenshots, monitoring data from the customer's perspective).

6.2 Claim Deadline

SLA credit claims must be submitted within 30 calendar days after the end of the calendar month in which the downtime occurred. Claims submitted after this deadline will not be processed.

6.3 Review and Response

Hotbox will review all SLA claims against its internal monitoring records and provide a written response within 10 business days. If a credit is approved, it will be applied to the customer's account within 2 billing cycles following approval.

If the customer disputes Hotbox's determination, they may escalate by replying to the claim response and requesting a second review by senior operations staff. The outcome of the second review is final.

7. Exclusions

The following events and circumstances are excluded from SLA coverage and do not count as Hotbox-attributable downtime:

7.1 Force Majeure

Events beyond Hotbox's reasonable control, including: natural disasters, floods, earthquakes, fires, acts of war or terrorism, strikes, epidemics, government actions, or failures of upstream network providers beyond Hotbox's network border.

7.2 Customer-Caused Issues

• Service outages caused by actions or configurations of the customer, including but not limited to: misconfiguration of operating system, firewall, or applications; accidental deletion of data or system files; resource exhaustion caused by the customer's own workloads;
• Outages caused by software installed by the customer;
• Customer-initiated reboots, shutdowns, or reinstallations;
• Failure to apply critical security patches that results in compromise and service disruption.

7.3 DDoS Attacks

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeting the customer's services that exceed Hotbox's DDoS mitigation capacity. Hotbox operates network-level DDoS protection, but attacks of sufficient volume or sophistication may still result in temporary service degradation. Hotbox will make reasonable efforts to mitigate such attacks and restore service as quickly as possible, but outages caused by attacks beyond mitigation capacity are excluded from SLA coverage.

7.4 Third-Party Services

Outages or degradation caused by third-party services, APIs, DNS providers, CDN providers, or software that the customer relies upon but that are outside Hotbox's control.

7.5 Scheduled and Emergency Maintenance

Downtime during maintenance windows as defined in Section 4.

7.6 Account Suspension

Service unavailability resulting from suspension of the customer's account due to non-payment, AUP violation, or legal requirements.

8. Reporting and Incident Communication

In the event of a significant service incident, Hotbox will:

• Acknowledge the incident by email to affected customers within 2 hours of internal detection;
• Provide status updates at intervals of no more than 2 hours during the incident;
• Send a resolution notification when the service is restored, including a brief description of the cause and steps taken;
• Publish a post-incident report within 5 business days for outages exceeding 2 hours.

To report a suspected service outage, contact: [email protected].

9. Relationship to Terms of Service

This SLA is incorporated into and subject to the Hotbox Terms of Service. In the event of any conflict between this SLA and the Terms of Service, the Terms of Service shall prevail.

The service credits described in this SLA represent the customer's sole and exclusive remedy for service unavailability. They do not limit or replace any other rights or remedies available under applicable law to consumer customers.

10. Changes to This SLA

Hotbox may update this SLA at any time. Changes to existing customers' services take effect 30 days after notification by email. If changes materially reduce the SLA commitments, affected customers may terminate their service and receive a pro-rated refund for any prepaid period.