Service Level Agreement

📅 Effective: January 1, 2025 🔄 Version: 3.2 🏢 Applies to: All Tier Plans

This Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines Dictionary's commitments regarding service availability, performance standards, support response times, and remediation procedures. This document supplements our Master Service Agreement and Terms of Service. By accessing or using Dictionary's platform, you acknowledge these service commitments.

1 Overview & Scope

Dictionary provides a cloud-based language processing, dictionary, and translation platform accessible via web, API, and mobile applications. This SLA applies to production environments hosted by Dictionary and covers core services including but not limited to:

Real-time dictionary lookup & definition APIs
Multi-language translation endpoints
Web & mobile application infrastructure
Data storage, backups, and retrieval systems

                    Note: Performance metrics are measured monthly using industry-standard monitoring tools. Uptime calculations exclude scheduled maintenance and customer-caused outages. All times refer to UTC unless otherwise specified.
                

2 Service Availability Commitments

Dictionary guarantees the following monthly uptime percentages based on your subscribed plan:

Plan Tier	Guaranteed Uptime	Max Allowable Downtime/Month	Measurement Scope
Free / Starter	99.5%	3.6 hours	Core API & Web
Professional	99.9%	43.8 minutes	All Endpoints
Enterprise	99.99%	4.3 minutes	Full Stack + Dedicated Infra

Uptime is calculated as: (Total Minutes in Month - Unplanned Downtime) / Total Minutes in Month × 100. Downtime is defined as periods where the service is completely inaccessible or returns error rates exceeding 10% for more than 5 continuous minutes.

3 Support Response & Resolution Times

Dictionary's support team adheres to the following initial response and target resolution windows based on ticket severity:

Severity	Description	Initial Response	Target Resolution	Support Hours
SEV-1	Complete service outage or data loss	≤ 30 minutes	≤ 4 hours	24/7
SEV-2	Major feature degradation or partial outage	≤ 2 hours	≤ 12 hours	24/7
SEV-3	Minor bug, single-user impact, or workaround available	≤ 8 hours	≤ 3 business days	Mon-Fri, 9-17 UTC
SEV-4	Feature request, general inquiry, or documentation	≤ 24 hours	Best effort	Mon-Fri, 9-17 UTC

4 Scheduled Maintenance

Dictionary may perform scheduled maintenance to improve security, performance, or add features. We commit to the following guidelines:

Standard maintenance windows: UTC 02:00 - 06:00 on weekends
Minimum 14 days advance notice for Enterprise clients
Minimum 48 hours notice for all other tiers
Maintenance excludes emergency security patches or critical vulnerability fixes

                    Emergency Maintenance: In cases of critical security vulnerabilities or system-wide failures, Dictionary reserves the right to perform unscheduled maintenance. All downtime resulting from emergency maintenance is excluded from SLA calculations.
                

5 Service Credits & Remedies

If Dictionary fails to meet the guaranteed uptime percentages, eligible customers may request service credits. Credits are applied to the next invoice or subscription cycle.

99.0% - 99.4%

Service Credit: 10% of monthly fee

95.0% - 98.9%

Service Credit: 25% of monthly fee

< 95.0%

Service Credit: 50% of monthly fee

Eligibility Requirements: Credits are only available to customers with valid, active subscriptions and up-to-date payment methods. Claims must be submitted within 30 days of the service disruption via the Client Portal. The sole remedy for SLA breaches is the applicable service credit; Dictionary shall not be liable for indirect, consequential, or punitive damages.

6 Customer Responsibilities

To maintain service quality and ensure SLA compliance, customers agree to:

Maintain secure credentials and enforce MFA on all accounts
Monitor API rate limits and implement appropriate retry logic
Keep client-side integrations, SDKs, and webhooks updated
Report incidents promptly through official support channels
Avoid malicious usage, abuse, or unauthorized data scraping

7 Exclusions & Limitations

SLA commitments do not apply to service disruptions caused by:

Customer negligence, misconfiguration, or unauthorized modifications
Third-party services, CDNs, or external APIs outside Dictionary's control
Internet service provider failures or customer network issues
Acts of God, terrorism, war, or other force majeure events
Beta features, experimental APIs, or explicitly marked unstable endpoints
Denial-of-service attacks or widespread internet infrastructure failures

8 Dispute Resolution & Contact

If you believe Dictionary has failed to meet SLA commitments, please submit a formal claim through the Client Portal or contact our enterprise support team. All claims will be reviewed within 5 business days. If unresolved, disputes will be handled according to the dispute resolution clause in our Master Service Agreement.

📞 SLA & Support Contact:
Portal: status.dictionary.com
Email: sla-support@dictionary.com
Phone (Enterprise): +1 (888) 555-0199 (24/7)

This Service Level Agreement is subject to periodic review and updates. Dictionary reserves the right to modify these terms with 30 days written notice. Continued use of the service constitutes acceptance of any changes. Last updated: January 1, 2025.