When someone opens ChatGPT, they expect it to respond quickly, without any hiccups. If something goes wrong, just a few minutes of downtime can seriously frustrate the user who needs the platform right then and there. And many won’t wait around — they’ll quickly move on and find an alternative solution.
The pressure to deliver consistently is exactly why service teams need a clear framework for setting expectations and measuring performance. This guide breaks down SLA vs. SLO vs. SLI and how each supports service delivery. We’ll also introduce monday service as a central, intelligent space to manage all your service metrics.
Try monday serviceSLO vs. SLA vs. SLI examples, definitions, and key differences
Before we dig into the specifics of each acronym, here’s a quick overview of the key differences between service level agreements (SLAs), service level objectives (SLOs), and service level indicators (SLIs). As you can see, each relates to the broader concept of service quality, but they serve distinct roles.
| Term | SLA (service level agreement) | SLO (service level objective) | SLI (service level indicator) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Definition | A formal, often contractual, agreement between a service provider and customer outlining expected service levels. | A specific, internal performance goal that supports one or more SLAs. | A measurable value that shows how well a service is performing. |
| Purpose | Sets expectations and provides accountability for service delivery. | Guides teams in maintaining acceptable service performance. | Provides data to evaluate performance against SLOs. |
| Audience | External – customers, vendors. | Internal – service teams, IT operations. | Internal and external – used by service teams, and often published for transparency. |
| Example | “99.9% uptime per month, or we refund 10% of the bill." | "Target 99.95% uptime this month." | “Actual uptime this month: 99.93%." |
Here’s how these important metrics link together to form the foundation of reliable, accountable service delivery.
What is a service level agreement (SLA)?
A service level agreement is a contract that outlines the level of service a provider promises to deliver. SLAs often outline the consequences of missed targets, such as service credits or penalties, making them enforceable terms of service.
Example: A company may guarantee 99.9% uptime each month or commit to resolving high-priority tickets within 4 hours. If the provider fails to meet these targets, the SLA might require the provider to take corrective action.
Best practices for managing service level agreements
- Make expectations measurable: Use clear, trackable metrics like “respond within 2 hours” or “resolve within 1 business day.”
- Match commitments to capacity: Build SLAs around what your team can deliver consistently, even during high-volume periods.
- Tailor SLAs to request type: Create different SLA targets based on issue severity or category to reflect real business priorities.
- Track performance trends: Review SLA compliance over time to spot patterns and improve service delivery before issues grow.
- Communicate early when issues arise: If a breach is likely, inform stakeholders immediately and outline the next steps clearly.
What are service level objectives (SLO)?
Service teams use service level objectives (SLOs) to stay within the limits defined by SLAs. While SLAs focus on customer service, SLOs are used within the organization to monitor internal performance metrics and trigger early intervention when performance starts to slip.
Example: A support team might set an SLO to maintain 99.95% uptime over 30 days. If performance begins to dip, the team investigates and acts before a breach occurs.
Best practices for managing service level objectives
- Set targets around what matters most: Focus on indicators that show how the service feels to the end user, such as lag time.
- Use data to guide decisions: Analyze past performance to set SLOs reflecting your team’s capabilities and historical patterns.
- Track progress continuously: Monitor SLOs in real time with dashboards and alerts, so teams can act as soon as something starts to drift.
- Align with SLAs: Make sure SLOs directly support the commitments outlined in your SLAs. They should act as a buffer to prevent breaches.
- Adjust when things change: As services evolve, review and update SLOs to reflect new priorities or operational realities.
What are service level indicators (SLI)?
Service level indicators (SLIs) are the specific metrics internal teams use to measure service performance, such as uptime, latency, response time, and error rates. SLIs don’t carry targets on their own but they supply evidence of how close you are to hitting your SLOs and, ultimately, fulfilling your SLAs.
Example: If a team sets an SLO for 99.95% uptime, the SLI would be the actual uptime percentage measured by the monitoring tool.
Best practices for managing service level indicators
- Choose SLIs that reflect user experience: Focus on indicators that show how the service feels to the end user rather than what the system logs.
- Keep it simple: A few well-chosen SLIs are more useful than a long list. Start with the metrics that tie directly to your SLOs.
- Create alerts for key thresholds: Set notifications to flag when an SLI falls below an acceptable level. This helps teams act before the issue becomes an SLA breach.
- Track performance over time: Historical data can reveal patterns, uncover the root of recurring issues, and support more accurate planning.
- Review SLIs alongside your SLOs or SLAs: As business goals shift, your indicators should reflect what matters most to your team and your users.
What are the challenges of SLOs, SLAs, and SLIs in business service management?
It’s not hard to understand why service leaders should build systems that enable them to keep promises to their customers. But turning SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs into a smooth service management system is where positive intentions can sometimes fall apart.
Here are some common challenges that enterprise service managers and IT leaders experience.
Inconsistent data tracking
You can’t improve what you can’t see. But in many organizations, the data required to measure performance against SLAs or SLOs lives in too many places. Some metrics sit in a monitoring tool, others in a project management system, and you may accidentally omit a few pieces of information entirely. Without a single source of truth, it’s hard to tell if your team is hitting its targets or how far off you are.
Siloed workflows
Often, a single support request might require multiple faces from IT, engineering, HR, or finance to come together and resolve the issue. But when each department uses different tools or has its own preferred style of working, coordination becomes a major hurdle and escalations are messy. This type of friction puts your SLAs at risk.
Ambiguous service definitions
A lot of teams assume they’re on the same page about what “first response” or “resolution” means until a ticket breaches an SLA, and no one knows what happened. Vague or undocumented service definitions create confusion about who’s responsible for what and how you measure performance.
Manual processes
Some teams still use spreadsheets to track tickets, copy data between tools, or set timers by hand. These manual workflows slow things down and open the door to mistakes. And when service requests increase, those same processes quickly become a bottleneck.
Slow adaptation to business changes
Service expectations shift constantly, for example, when your company rolls out a new product or expands to a new region. If your SLAs and SLOs stay the same, they can quickly fall out of sync with what the business actually needs.
How to scale your service delivery with powerful AI features
Teams struggling with SLA performance don’t usually need more policies, but they do need better systems. monday service is an enterprise-grade platform designed to empower IT leaders and service managers with everything they need to track, improve, and deliver on service expectations.
Here’s how monday service removes blockers and guesswork from your service delivery so you can meet SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs with ease.
Prioritize critical issues with AI-powered ticket classification
Instead of manually tagging and forwarding requests, you can apply logic that sorts service tickets the moment they arrive. monday service is equipped with built-in AI functionality, so high-priority issues are immediately routed to the right people; meanwhile, standard requests follow consistent workflows with no extra effort required from your side.
Capture every request with multichannel ticket intake
Support rarely starts from a single location. Someone might log an issue via Outlook, Slack, or Gmail, and all of these support interactions are funnelled into monday service. That means no digging through inboxes and no risk of missing a request because it came in through the “wrong” tool. Regardless of the source, all requests become actionable tickets you can jump on and provide a resolution.
Respond faster using smart sentiment detection
Every request has context, but sometimes it’s hidden in tone rather than content. monday service uses sentiment detection to analyze the language in incoming tickets and flag whether the sentiment is positive, negative, or neutral.
Example: A message that reads, “I’ve submitted this 3 times and still haven’t heard back,” would be flagged as negative and potentially escalated, even if the request type itself isn’t urgent. This extra layer of insight places customer frustrations front and center so you can provide a more responsive support experience.
Make smarter decisions with live dashboards and analytics
Waiting on weekly reports to understand performance makes it harder to course-correct in real time. Dashboards in monday service show current SLA status, ticket volumes, and agent activity so leaders can make informed decisions on the fly, whether that means reallocating capacity or flagging a recurring blocker.
Avoid SLA breaches with configurable timers and early alerts
Configuring SLA rules in monday service means teams get alerted before a deadline slips. You can pause timers while waiting on the customer, restart them as needed, and automate actions when targets are at risk. It’s the type of proactive control that means you’re never on the back foot.
Reduce delays with enhanced integrations
Service teams move faster when their tools talk to each other. Integrations with tools like Azure DevOps and DocuSign enable you to manage requests, workflows, and approvals in one place. Expect smoother processes and slicker handoffs as a result.
Deliver a consistent, reliable service with monday service
Successful service delivery relies on your customer base trusting you can deliver what you’ve promised. Creating clear parameters for your SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs is the first step, closely followed by tracking and acting on them.
Enterprises can follow through on their service commitment by designing systems that make reliability a repeatable reality rather than an accident.
monday service gives you the infrastructure to do exactly that, with flexible workflows, live performance tracking, and the power to automate decisions where they matter most. When your systems work in sync, your teams can focus on what really counts: delivering a higher level of service. not managing spreadsheets.
Gain visibility into your service operations by getting a free trial of monday service today.
Try monday serviceFAQs
What is SLA vs. SLO vs. KPI?
An SLA is a formal agreement between a provider and a customer that sets the expectations for things like uptime or response times, and an SLO is the internal goal teams use to meet those expectations. A key performance indicator (KPI) is broader; it's any metric used to measure performance, not just service levels. So, while SLAs and SLOs focus on quality of service, KPIs could also track things like customer satisfaction or team efficiency.
What is the difference between SLO and SLA?
An SLA is customer-facing; it's the service provider’s promise to the people using the service. On the other hand, internal teams track SLOs behind the scenes to meet that promise. If you think of the SLA as the commitment, the SLO is the plan to deliver on it.
What are the 3 types of SLA?
There are 3 common types of service level agreements:
- Customer-based SLAs are customized for one customer and include the specific mix of services you provide them.
- Service-based SLAs apply to a particular service, regardless of who the customer is.
- Multi-level SLAs combine different layers, like company-wide standards, service-specific targets, and customer-specific tweaks.
Is 100% SLA possible?
Yes, you can define an SLA with 100% targets. But in practice, it’s extremely difficult to guarantee perfect performance across all service metrics. Systems fail, bugs slip through, and human error happens. That’s why most providers set realistic targets, such as 99.9% uptime or certain response windows, to plan for the unexpected while still holding teams accountable.
How do you calculate SLA?
To calculate your service level agreement, take the amount of time the service was available or met its goal, then divide it by the total time in the period, and multiply by 100.
Example: If your site was up for 719 out of 720 hours in a month, that’s (719 ÷ 720) × 100 = 99.86% uptime.
Are SLAs legally binding?
SLAs aren’t legally binding by default, but they can be if they’re included in a signed contract. When that’s the case, failing to meet the agreed service levels can trigger consequences, like service credits, refunds, or even termination rights. It all depends on how the agreement is written, so it’s worth checking the details and seeking legal advice before you commit to anything.
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