A service level agreement template is a fill-in outline of what your helpdesk promises: services, priorities, and targets for response, restoration, and resolution. It also sets the hours that count, the clock rules, escalation, reporting, and what happens on a miss.
Copy or download the template below. It comes from the team behind SherpaDesk, a helpdesk and professional services automation (PSA) tool a small IT team can run alone. It's a practical outline, not legal advice; have a lawyer review the wording before a client signs.
Key takeaways
A service level agreement (SLA) is a contract between a service provider and its customers, external or internal, that documents the services and the standards the provider must meet. NIST lists responsibilities, expected performance such as response times, and requirements for reporting, resolution, and termination.
CISA advises organizations hiring an MSP to ask for "specific performance-related service level agreements" before the contract is signed.
The SLA is often incorporated by reference in the provider's master service agreement. The template also works for an internal SLA, between an IT department and its internal customer, such as another department or site.
This simple service level agreement template has 12 fields. Brackets mark what you fill in; most hold a hint; empty ones take a number or time.
Service level agreement templateSERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT TEMPLATE
Outline for discussion with your lawyer, not a contract
Provider: [MSP or IT team]
Client: [client company, department, or school]
Term: [own dates, or follows the MSA term]
Next review: [date]
1. SERVICES COVERED
Included: [services, in plain words]
Excluded: [services you don't cover]
2. PRIORITIES
P1 [Whole company stopped]
P2 [Team stopped, or one user with no workaround]
P3 [One user stopped, workaround exists]
P4 [Request or question, nobody stopped]
Set by: [who assigns priority at triage]
Change request: [how the client asks to change it]
3. TARGETS (business hours unless marked)
Priority Response Restoration Resolution
P1 [ ] [ ] [ ]
P2 [ ] [ ] [ ]
P3 [ ] [ ] [ ]
P4 [ ] [ ] [ ]
Sample: [tickets closed, or logged, in the month]
Count: [each target separately, or all three]
Goal: [__]% on time, per priority, per month
4. COVERAGE HOURS
Business hours: [days, hours, time zone]
Holidays: [named calendar]
After hours: [priorities] via [phone line]
5. CLOCK RULES
Start: [ticket logged or call received]
Response stops: [first technician reply or call]
Restoration stops: [client confirms it works]
Resolution stops: [fix done, cause recorded]
Pauses: [waiting on client, vendor, or access]
Reopened ticket: [clock restarts or continues]
6. HOW TO REPORT AN ISSUE
[Portal, email address, phone]; P1 by [phone]
7. CLIENT RESPONSIBILITIES
[Named contact, access, approvals]
8. ESCALATION
Target at risk: [role] at [__]% of target
Target missed: [role]
Client side: [role]
9. EXCLUSIONS
[Third-party outages, delays the client causes,
planned maintenance window, force majeure]
10. REPORTING AND REVIEW
Report: [how often], showing [results]
Review meeting: [how often], with [roles]
Changes: [how a change is agreed and signed]
11. MISSED TARGETS AND SERVICE CREDITS
Remedy: [review and fix plan, credits, or both]
Targets with a credit: [list]
Trigger: [each missed ticket, or goal missed]
Credit: [__]% of monthly fee per trigger
Cap: [__]% of monthly fee
Claim window: [__] days · Earn-back: [yes/no]
Relation to other remedies: [wording by counsel]
12. SIGNATURES
[Name, role, date] for each side, or signed
with the MSAThe service level agreement contract template stays short, but three fields need more than a line.
Three clocks. Response means a technician has acknowledged the ticket and started work. Restoration means the service works again, possibly through a workaround. Resolution means the cause is fixed or the request is done. As one r/msp member put it: "We responded, not solve the problem, which are two different things…"
Measurement. Pick the monthly sample, logged or closed tickets. Excluded tickets leave it, and each ticket counts only for measures that apply. Decide whether measures are scored separately. A closed-ticket count can't show misses on tickets still open, so list those too. Counsel words the final clause.
Credits. Typically, a percentage of the monthly fee is put at risk, and credits come out of it on a miss.
One r/msp thread asked about a client who wanted a five-minute response at about 140 inquiries an hour. A member said it might work for simple tickets you can template, then added: "If they're issues that require troubleshooting and thought, no chance."
The example column fills each field for an MSP supporting a 30-person architecture firm in Denver.
| Field | What to decide | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Parties and term | Legal names; own dates or the MSA's | Summit IT LLC and Larkin Architects PLLC (example names); MSA term; next review July 1, 2027 |
| 1. Services | Covered services, then exclusions | Helpdesk, patching, backups, Microsoft 365. Excluded: design software licensing, warranty repairs, projects over 4 hours |
| 2. Priorities | Levels by impact and urgency; who sets and changes them | Four levels, as in our helpdesk SOP; MSP sets them; office manager can ask to raise one |
| 3. Targets | Times; sample, count, goal | Below; closed tickets minus exclusions; applicable measures scored separately; 90% |
| 4. Coverage hours | Hours, time zone, holidays, after hours | 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mountain, weekdays, excluding U.S. federal holidays; P1 after hours by phone |
| 5. Clock rules | Start, each stop, pauses, reopened tickets | Start: ticket logged or call received. Response stops at a technician's first reply or call, not an auto-acknowledgment; restoration when the office confirms; resolution when the fix is done, cause recorded. Restoration and resolution pause while the office owes an answer or access. Reopening restarts resolution |
| 6. Reporting an issue | Channels that start a clock | Portal or email; P1 by phone |
| 7. Client duties | Contact, access, approvals | Office manager approves changes; MSP keeps admin access |
| 8. Escalation | Who takes a ticket at risk and at a miss | Service manager at half a P1 or P2 target; MSP owner at a miss; a named partner |
| 9. Exclusions | What doesn't count against targets | Internet provider outages and Sunday 6 to 10 p.m. maintenance: affected tickets leave the restoration and resolution sample; response still counts |
| 10. Reporting and review | Report, meeting, changes | Monthly: on-time % per priority and measure, misses by ticket, credits, open tickets past target. Quarterly review: office manager, a partner, service manager. Changes per the MSA |
| 11. Credits | Trigger, percentage, cap, claim window | Eligible P1 tickets only: a response or restoration miss. One credit per ticket: 5% of that month's fee, cap 15%. Claimed within 30 days of the report; no earn-back |
| 12. Signatures | Who signs | Left blank; signed with the MSA |
Field 3, filled in. A business day is 9 coverage hours.
| Priority | Example | Response | Restoration | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P1 Office stopped | Internet down, file server offline | 30 minutes, any time | 4 hours, any time | 3 business days |
| P2 Team stopped | Plotter queue down; one user can't sign in | 1 business hour | 1 business day | 3 business days |
| P3 Workaround exists | Slow laptop, one printer fault | 4 business hours | Not used | 5 business days |
| P4 Request | New software, access change | 1 business day | Not used | 10 business days |
Scoring a month: say 40 P2 tickets close in March and 3 miss response. That's 37 of 40, or 92.5%, above the 90% goal. Credits are separate from that goal: each eligible P1 ticket that misses response or restoration earns one.
For an internal SLA without a service fee, a review item can replace credits.
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How this works in SherpaDesk
You can give each priority two SLA goals, response and completion, and define your business hours and holidays. Ticket details show the SLA Due By, Waited, and Completion times. If a ticket is reopened, the completion time resets from the latest reopening.
For the monthly report, Reports > SLA & Priority gives you an On-Time Report and a Goal vs. Actual Report on closed tickets, by response or completion.
A helpdesk and PSA a small IT team can run alone. SherpaDesk itself has no contract. No implementation project. No dedicated admin. Base Camp is $45 per agent per month ($40 billed annually), the first agent is free, forever, and the trial is 14 days free with no card.
Who this isn't for
Hosting and SaaS providers whose SLA covers uptime, not tickets. An MSP asked to sign a contract the client drafted needs a lawyer's review of that paper instead.
Response time is the time the provider takes to respond to an issue or request. Resolution time runs from the moment the issue is logged until it is resolved. This template adds restoration in between: the service works again, possibly through a workaround.
No. The managed services agreement is the whole contract: services, fees, liability, and termination. The SLA documents the service standards the provider must meet, and it is often incorporated by reference in the master agreement. See our managed services agreement guide.
Yes. The download is plain text, so it pastes into Word or Google Docs. The targets grid in field 3 is aligned with spaces, so set it in a fixed-width font or turn it into a table. Keep the field numbers for your MSA.
A lawyer's review is worth having before a client signs, because credits, exclusions, and remedies are legal terms. Fill in the operational fields yourself first: services, priorities, targets, hours, clock rules, and escalation, so the lawyer works from real numbers.
Tell them when it matters: at signing and when a ticket opens. One r/msp member said: "Our SLA in our contract is 4 hours and we remind customers of this when they create a ticket by sending them an automated email."
Patrick co-founded SherpaDesk and has led it as CEO since 2013. He has worked with IT service providers since 1998, first on network projects for schools and government offices, then on the helpdesk software their technicians use every day.