Service Level Agreement (SLA) & Maintenance Scope

1. Agreement Scope & Applicability

This Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) defines the operational commitments, support channels, target response times, and task scope for clients subscribed to AFzDigital’s Website Care & Continuous Maintenance plan ($149/month).

This SLA operates alongside our Terms of Service and establishes clear expectations to ensure fast, reliable, and transparent website maintenance and uptime.

2. Standard Operating Hours & Availability

AFzDigital technical support operates during regular business hours:

• Support Hours: Monday through Friday, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM Eastern Time (EST).
• Observed Holidays: Standard United States federal holidays.
• Continuous Monitoring: Automated uptime, SSL certificate validity, and endpoint health monitoring run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

3. Incident Classification & Target Response Times

Support inquiries and automated incidents are categorized into three severity levels. Response times indicate when an AFzDigital technical specialist actively reviews and begins remediation on the ticket.

Severity 1: Critical Emergency (Response: 2–4 Hours)

• Definition: Complete website outage, DNS resolution failure, SSL certificate invalidity, database crash, or verified malware/security breach affecting production environments.
• Action Protocol: Immediate emergency triage, server host communication, backup deployment if necessary, and diagnostic updates provided every 2 hours until resolution.
• Coverage: Monitored 24/7 via automated alert triggers.

Severity 2: Degraded Functionality (Response: 12–24 Business Hours)

• Definition: Core website remains accessible, but critical features are broken (e.g. contact or qualification forms failing to send, primary navigation broken, broken checkout links, mobile responsive styling bugs).
• Action Protocol: Root-cause debugging and corrective patch deployment during standard business hours.

Severity 3: Routine Maintenance & Minor Edits (Response: 24–48 Business Hours)

• Definition: Day-to-day website updates, copy revisions, image replacements, software updates, and general questions.
• Action Protocol: Task queued, executed, tested, and confirmed within 1 to 2 business days.

4. Included Scope: Unlimited Routine Edits

Our Website Care plan includes unlimited minor edits submitted one at a time. A “minor edit” is defined as a discrete task that can be executed and tested within approximately 30 minutes by an engineer.

Tasks Fully Included in Monthly Maintenance:

• Text & Copy Revisions: Updating business hours, headline adjustments, price table adjustments, service area lists, or staff bios.
• Media & Asset Swaps: Replacing header banners, team photos, gallery images, or client logos.
• Content Publishing: Formatting and publishing client-provided blog posts, case studies, or announcement banners.
• Form & Link Maintenance: Updating email notification recipients, testing intake forms, or updating external links.
• Software & Extension Maintenance: Testing and applying CMS core updates, theme patches, and extension/plugin security upgrades.
• Security & Backups: Daily offsite automated cloud backups, malware scanning, and database optimization.

Out-of-Scope Work (Requires Custom Packages or Estimates):

To protect delivery speeds for all clients, tasks requiring architectural engineering or extensive creative production fall outside routine monthly care:

• Full website redesigns, template replacements, or page restructuring.
• Custom backend application development, database architecture, or custom API integrations.
• E-commerce payment gateway rebuilds or large-scale catalog migrations (exceeding 10 products).
• Custom graphic design, branding design, video editing, or copywriting from scratch.
• Third-party marketing platform configuration unrelated to the client website (e.g. setting up external CRM email workflows).

Note: Out-of-scope requirements can be quoted separately as standalone project packages at transparent flat rates.

5. Support Request Protocol

To maintain accountability and fast delivery:

1. Official Channel: All maintenance and update requests must be submitted directly to [email protected] or through the designated client intake portal.
2. Submission Clarity: Requests should include direct page URLs, specific copy text in pasteable format, and high-resolution image assets if applicable.
3. Queue Processing: Requests are handled sequentially. While clients may submit multiple tasks, our team processes tasks in order of priority to maintain delivery speed.

6. Backups & Disaster Recovery

• Frequency: Automated cloud backups are generated daily for website databases and weekly for full filesystem archives.
• Retention: Rolling 30-day offsite snapshot backups are preserved securely.
• Restoration Guarantee: In the event of a catastrophic server fault, corrupted software update, or host failure, full restoration from the most recent verified backup is executed at zero additional fee.

7. Client Responsibilities

Timely fulfillment under this SLA relies on mutual collaboration:

• The Client must maintain administrative delegation for website hosting, DNS, and CMS environments.
• The Client must provide approved final text and assets (AFzDigital does not perform copyediting or legal verification of client-supplied content).
• The Client must notify AFzDigital promptly if external contractors or internal staff make direct modifications to server or codebase configurations.