Which SaaS vendors actually pay SLA credits?
Not every vendor with an SLA pays out easily. Here's a side-by-side of the uptime commitments, credit percentages, and claim deadlines for the major cloud and SaaS vendors that owe credits when they go down.
Plenty of vendors publish an SLA. Fewer make it easy to collect on it — the credit percentages, the deadlines, and even whether there's a published tariff at all vary widely. This is a side-by-side of the vendors Ontracko monitors that carry a credit remedy, drawn from their published SLAs.
The short answer
The major cloud providers — AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud — all pay tiered SLA credits, as do Atlassian, Slack, Twilio, Zoom, and GitHub (Enterprise). Datadog pays a flat 10% credit. Cloudflare pays a formula-based credit on its Business/Enterprise plans. Salesforce owes credits under its MSA but publishes no fixed tariff. Across all of them the credit is a percentage of the affected month's fee, and nearly all require you to file within 30 days — so the deadline, not the vendor, is usually what stands between you and the money.
The comparison
| Vendor | Uptime commitment | Max credit | Claim window | How credits work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | 99.9%–99.99% (by service) | up to 100% | 60 days | Tiered by service |
| Azure | 99.9%–99.99% (by service) | up to 100% | 60 days | Tiered by service |
| Google Cloud | 99.9%–99.99% (by service) | up to 50% | 30 days | Tiered by service |
| Atlassian | 99.9% Premium / 99.95% Enterprise | up to 50% | 30 days | Tiered |
| Slack | 99.99% (Business+/Enterprise Grid) | up to 25% | 30 days | Tiered |
| Twilio | 99.95% | up to 25% | 30 days | Tiered, per product |
| Zoom | 99.9% | up to 25% | 30 days | Tiered |
| GitHub | 99.9% Enterprise (quarterly) | up to 25% | 30 days | Tiered |
| Datadog | 99.9% | 10% | 30 days | Flat, per MSA |
| Cloudflare | 100% (Business+) | formula | 30 days | 25× outage-ratio formula |
| Salesforce | 99.9% | per MSA | 30 days | Negotiated, no tariff |
Reading the table
The cloud providers are the most generous — and the most conditional. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud can credit up to 100% of a service's monthly fee for a severe outage, but the higher tiers only trigger when uptime falls into the single digits below target, which is rare. Most real-world claims land in the first tier (10%). AWS and Azure give you 60 days; Google Cloud gives you only 30.
The plan matters more than the logo. SLAs almost always apply to paid or enterprise tiers only — Slack and Atlassian credits apply to Business+/Premium and above, Cloudflare's SLA applies to Business and Enterprise (not Free/Pro), and GitHub's applies to Enterprise Cloud. On a free or entry plan, there may be no credit remedy at all.
Some vendors don't publish a number. Salesforce settles credits through your Master Subscription Agreement rather than a public schedule, and Datadog, Zoom and Twilio set the final percentages in your order form. For those, the SLA page tells you the target and the deadline, but the exact credit lives in your contract — verify it before filing.
Cloudflare is the outlier. Its Business SLA commits to 100% uptime and computes the credit as a multiple (25×) of the outage ratio applied to the monthly fee, rather than a tier table.
You can open any vendor above for its exact tier schedule and a live credit calculator, or see who's actually been going down lately on the reliability rankings.
How to claim a credit from any of these vendors
- Confirm the outage from the vendor's public status page — capture the incident reference ID and the exact start and end times.
- Measure your affected service's monthly uptime and match it to the vendor's credit tier.
- Collect the required evidence: your account/organization ID, the affected service or region, and the incident timestamps.
- Open a billing or support case and request an SLA "service credit" under the availability clause, attaching your calculation and the incident reference.
- File before the window closes — 30 days for most vendors, 60 for AWS and Azure — because the deadline runs from the incident, not from when you noticed.
Frequently asked questions
Which cloud provider pays the highest SLA credit?
AWS and Azure can both credit up to 100% of a service's monthly fee for the most severe outages, versus Google Cloud's 50% cap. But the top tiers require uptime to fall far below target; most claims resolve at the entry tier of around 10%.
Do all SaaS vendors pay SLA credits?
No. A credit remedy exists only where the vendor publishes (or contractually agrees) an SLA with a credit clause, and it almost always applies to paid or enterprise plans. Free and entry-tier plans frequently have no credit remedy.
Which vendor has the shortest claim window?
Among the major clouds, Google Cloud's 30-day window is the shortest — AWS and Azure allow 60 days. Most SaaS vendors (Atlassian, Slack, Twilio, Zoom, GitHub, Datadog, Cloudflare, Salesforce) also use a 30-day deadline.
Does Cloudflare pay SLA credits?
Yes, on its Business and Enterprise plans, which carry a 100% uptime SLA. The credit is formula-based — 25× the outage ratio applied to the monthly fee — rather than a tiered table, and must be claimed within 30 days.
Methodology & caveats
Every figure here is transcribed from the named vendor's published SLA into Ontracko's monitored profiles, current as of the updated date above. Credit percentages, caps, and deadlines can change and often depend on plan and negotiated terms — for vendors that set credits in an MSA/order form (Salesforce, Datadog, Zoom, Twilio), treat the numbers as published defaults and confirm your own agreement before filing.
*Ontracko monitors SaaS & cloud vendors' public status feeds and recovers the SLA credits when they miss. Free — 8% only on recovered credits. See live reliability rankings or start with what is an SLA credit.*
Related reading
What is an SLA credit, and how do you claim it?
A plain-English definition of SLA credits: what they are, when a vendor owes you one, how much you can claim, and the step-by-step process to get the money back.
SLA credit vs service credit: what's the difference?
SLA credit and service credit are often used interchangeably — but the wording in your contract matters. Here's what each term means and what you're actually owed after an outage.
How to claim an SLA credit from Google Cloud
Google Cloud gives you just 30 days to claim an SLA credit — the shortest window of the major clouds. Here's the credit schedule for Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, BigQuery and more, and how to file before it closes.
How to claim an SLA credit from Cloudflare
Cloudflare's Business plan commits to 100% uptime and pays a formula-based credit when it misses. Here's how the 25x outage-ratio credit works, who qualifies, and how to file within 30 days.
Or browse the SLA glossary and the reliability rankings.
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