Reliability you can measure.

This SLA forms part of the agreement between APNCloud and the customer for eligible services. It should be read together with the APNCloud Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, Refund Policy, Billing & Renewal Policy and any service-specific terms shown on the applicable order.

1. Purpose and Status of this SLA

This Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) describes the service availability commitment, maintenance practices, support response targets, incident handling standards and service-credit remedies that APN CLOUD LTD, trading as APNCloud (“APNCloud”, “we”, “us” or “our”), provides for eligible paid hosting and server services. The purpose of this SLA is to set clear and measurable expectations while recognising that internet services depend on many interconnected systems, networks and third-party components.

This SLA is not a promise that every service will operate without interruption. Rather, it establishes the level of availability APNCloud commits to for eligible services and the remedy available when qualifying downtime causes monthly availability to fall below the stated commitment. Where a product page, written quotation or signed order contains a service-specific SLA that expressly differs from this document, the service-specific commitment will apply to that service to the extent of the difference.

This SLA applies only while the customer’s account is active, in good standing and fully paid for the period in which the claimed incident occurred. It does not expand the scope of support included with a product, create a warranty for third-party applications, or replace the responsibilities allocated to the customer under the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

2. Services Covered

Subject to the exclusions in this SLA, the 99.9% monthly availability commitment applies to the core hosting infrastructure used to provide the following eligible APNCloud services:

• Shared Hosting plans;
• Reseller Hosting plans;
• Cloud VPS Hosting plans;
• Managed Cloud VPS Hosting plans;
• Dedicated Server hosting where APNCloud is responsible for the relevant network or server infrastructure;
• eligible email-hosting services where the outage is caused by APNCloud-managed infrastructure.

Domain registration, transfer, renewal, SSL certificate issuance, software licensing, payment processing, third-party SaaS products, external DNS services not operated by APNCloud, and other pass-through or reseller services are not covered by the uptime credit in this SLA unless APNCloud expressly states otherwise. Those services remain subject to the applicable registrar, registry, certificate authority, software vendor, payment provider or third-party terms.

3. Definitions

For this SLA, the following definitions apply:

• “Availability” means the percentage of minutes in a calendar month during which an eligible service is capable of receiving and responding to normal network requests, excluding Excluded Events.
• “Qualifying Downtime” means an unplanned period in which an eligible service is unavailable because of a failure within infrastructure that APNCloud is responsible for and that is not an Excluded Event.
• “Excluded Event” means an event listed in Section 12 that is not counted as Qualifying Downtime.
• “Monthly Recurring Fee” means the recurring base fee actually paid for the affected eligible service for the relevant monthly service period, excluding taxes, domain fees, licences, add-ons, setup fees, usage charges, credits and third-party charges.
• “Service Credit” means a non-cash credit applied to the customer’s APNCloud account in accordance with Section 10.
• “Scheduled Maintenance” means maintenance announced in advance through the Client Area, email, status page or another reasonable communication channel.
• “Emergency Maintenance” means urgent work required to protect security, stability, data integrity, routing or infrastructure where advance notice may not be practical.
• “Customer-Controlled Component” means software, code, configuration, DNS, credentials, firewall rules, operating systems, applications, databases, content or services controlled by the customer.

4. Monthly Availability Commitment

APNCloud targets and commits to at least 99.9% monthly availability for eligible services covered by this SLA. A 99.9% monthly commitment permits approximately 43 minutes and 50 seconds of Qualifying Downtime in a 30.44-day average month before the monthly availability level falls below the commitment.

Availability is assessed per affected service, not across the entire APNCloud platform. An incident affecting one customer, server, virtual machine, reseller account or hosting node does not automatically mean that all APNCloud services have failed the SLA. Similarly, an outage of a customer’s website caused by application errors may not be Qualifying Downtime if the underlying APNCloud hosting service remains available.

5. How Availability Is Calculated

Monthly Availability Percentage is calculated using the following formula:

Availability % = ((Total Minutes − Qualifying Downtime Minutes) ÷ Total Minutes) × 100

Total Minutes means the total number of minutes in the relevant calendar month during which the service was active and eligible for SLA coverage. Minutes before activation, after termination, during suspension for non-payment or abuse, or while the customer has intentionally stopped the service are not included.

APNCloud may use monitoring systems, server logs, network telemetry, hypervisor records, data-centre records, ticket history and other reliable operational evidence to determine the start, duration and cause of an incident. Where monitoring data and a customer report differ, APNCloud will review the available evidence in good faith.

6. Service-Specific Availability Standards

6.1 Shared Hosting and Reseller Hosting

For Shared Hosting and Reseller Hosting, availability generally refers to the operation of the APNCloud-managed web hosting platform and network necessary to serve hosted content. A single website returning an application, database, CMS, plugin, theme, code or configuration error does not by itself establish Qualifying Downtime where the hosting node and network remain operational.

For Reseller Hosting, an issue affecting only one reseller-created user account may be treated separately from an incident affecting the reseller service as a whole. Resellers remain responsible for their own customer content, account configuration, customer support and customer-side software.

6.2 Cloud VPS Hosting

For Cloud VPS Hosting, the SLA covers availability of APNCloud-managed compute, storage and network infrastructure required for the virtual server to operate. For unmanaged VPS services, APNCloud does not guarantee the availability of the customer’s operating system, control panel, firewall, web server, database, scripts or applications after the virtual server has been delivered and is reachable at the infrastructure level.

6.3 Managed Cloud VPS Hosting

Managed Cloud VPS Hosting receives the same infrastructure availability commitment together with the management scope included in the purchased plan. Management assistance does not make unsupported third-party applications part of the SLA. APNCloud will use commercially reasonable efforts to diagnose covered managed-service issues, but application bugs, custom code, unsupported software and third-party integrations remain outside the uptime calculation unless their failure is directly caused by qualifying APNCloud infrastructure downtime.

6.4 Dedicated Servers

For Dedicated Servers, the SLA applies to APNCloud-controlled network availability and to infrastructure components expressly included in the applicable service. Hardware can fail without warning. When APNCloud is responsible for server hardware, APNCloud will use commercially reasonable efforts to diagnose and replace failed components as soon as reasonably practicable, subject to parts availability, data-centre access, vendor procedures and the server configuration. A separate written hardware-replacement guarantee applies only if expressly included in the order.

7. Network and Infrastructure

APNCloud designs its hosting services to provide reliable connectivity and reasonable redundancy appropriate to the service tier. Network availability means that APNCloud-managed infrastructure has a functioning route to the public internet through the network facilities used for the service. Performance can vary because internet traffic crosses networks outside APNCloud’s control.

Latency, packet loss or reduced throughput will be treated as an outage only where the degradation is severe enough to make the covered service effectively unavailable and the cause is within APNCloud-controlled infrastructure. Normal congestion, distance-related latency, customer ISP problems, international routing conditions or third-party peering issues that do not amount to APNCloud infrastructure failure are excluded.

8. Support Availability and Response Targets

Customers may submit support requests through the support channels made available by APNCloud. Where APNCloud advertises 24/7 support, this means support requests can be submitted at any time. Response targets describe the priority APNCloud aims to give to a ticket; they are operational targets rather than separate financial guarantees.

Response time means the time to the first meaningful acknowledgement or diagnostic response, not the time to final resolution. Resolution time depends on the cause, complexity, customer cooperation, third-party involvement and availability of replacement hardware or upstream support.

9. Maintenance

9.1 Scheduled Maintenance

APNCloud may perform scheduled maintenance to install updates, replace equipment, improve security, change routing, upgrade software, expand capacity or perform other work required to keep services reliable. Where practical, APNCloud will provide advance notice of maintenance that is expected to cause material service interruption.

Scheduled Maintenance is excluded from Qualifying Downtime when reasonable notice has been provided. APNCloud will seek to schedule disruptive maintenance at times intended to reduce customer impact, but a specific maintenance window is not guaranteed unless stated in a service-specific agreement.

9.2 Emergency Maintenance

Emergency Maintenance may be performed without normal advance notice when delay could create a material security, network, stability, data-integrity or abuse risk. APNCloud will aim to communicate significant emergency maintenance as soon as reasonably practicable. Emergency Maintenance is generally excluded from Qualifying Downtime where the work was reasonably necessary to prevent or mitigate a greater risk.

10. Service Credits

If monthly availability for an eligible service falls below 99.9% because of Qualifying Downtime, an eligible customer may request a Service Credit based on the Monthly Recurring Fee for the affected service. Service Credits are designed as the contractual SLA remedy for qualifying availability failures and are not cash refunds.

The maximum Service Credit for all qualifying incidents affecting a single service in one calendar month is 30% of that service’s Monthly Recurring Fee. Credits do not apply to taxes, domain fees, licences, add-ons, setup charges, usage charges, one-time charges or third-party fees. If a customer prepays quarterly, semi-annually or annually, APNCloud will calculate the Monthly Recurring Fee by dividing the eligible prepaid base service charge by the number of months in that billing period.

11. Claiming a Service Credit

Service Credits are not automatically issued because APNCloud must confirm that the incident was Qualifying Downtime and determine the affected service and duration. To request a credit, the customer must open a billing or support ticket within seven (7) days after the end of the calendar month in which the qualifying incident occurred.

The request should include, where reasonably available:

• the affected service or hostname;
• the approximate date and time of the incident;
• a brief description of the observed outage;
• the relevant support ticket number, if one exists.

APNCloud may request reasonable additional information needed to investigate the claim. Approved credits will be applied to the customer’s APNCloud account and may be used against future eligible invoices. Credits have no cash value, are not transferable between unrelated customers, and cannot be exchanged for a refund except where required by applicable law.

A customer is not eligible for an SLA credit if the account was overdue, suspended for non-payment, suspended for abuse, terminated, or otherwise not in good standing during the relevant incident. Fraudulent or materially misleading SLA claims may be rejected.

12. Excluded Events

The following events are not counted as Qualifying Downtime to the extent that they cause or contribute to the incident:

• Scheduled Maintenance or qualifying Emergency Maintenance;
• customer-requested maintenance, reboot, migration, restoration, operating-system reinstall or configuration change;
• customer code, scripts, plugins, themes, databases, applications, cron jobs, firewall rules, DNS settings, permissions or software failures;
• customer misuse, excessive resource consumption, prohibited activity or violation of the Acceptable Use Policy;
• suspension or restriction for non-payment, fraud prevention, security protection, legal compliance or abuse investigation;
• DDoS attacks, malware, ransomware, intrusion attempts or other hostile activity where APNCloud has taken reasonable protective measures, unless the outage is directly caused by a failure of APNCloud infrastructure that should otherwise qualify;
• failures of the customer’s ISP, local network, device, browser, VPN or telecommunications provider;
• internet routing, peering, DNS or upstream network conditions outside APNCloud’s reasonable control;
• domain registry, registrar, certificate authority, software vendor, payment provider or other third-party service failures;
• events caused by force majeure, including natural disasters, war, civil disorder, governmental action, widespread utility failure, major internet disruption or other events beyond reasonable control;
• beta, trial, free or experimental services unless expressly covered by a written SLA;
• downtime occurring before APNCloud receives information or access reasonably required to diagnose a customer-controlled problem.

13. Customer Responsibilities

Reliable service is a shared responsibility. Customers must maintain accurate contact information, protect account credentials, use secure passwords, keep applications and software updated where they control them, maintain valid software licences, and respond reasonably to support requests for logs, access or diagnostic information.

Customers using unmanaged VPS or Dedicated Server services are responsible for operating-system administration, security hardening, firewall configuration, application updates, malware prevention, backups and other server-level tasks unless those tasks are expressly included in a managed service.

A customer must not intentionally generate conditions designed to trigger an SLA credit, interfere with monitoring, disable required management access, or prevent APNCloud from performing reasonable diagnostics. If a customer fails to take a reasonable corrective action after APNCloud identifies a customer-controlled cause, continuing disruption from that cause is excluded from the SLA calculation.

14. Backups, Data and Restoration

Where a hosting plan includes backup functionality, APNCloud will operate that functionality according to the applicable service description. Backup services are an additional resilience measure and do not replace the customer’s responsibility to maintain independent copies of important data unless APNCloud expressly agrees otherwise.

A backup or restore operation may temporarily affect performance and does not itself constitute Qualifying Downtime when initiated at the customer’s request or reasonably required to recover from a customer-controlled incident. APNCloud does not guarantee that every file, database, mailbox or configuration can be recovered in every situation. Any specific backup retention period or restore commitment must be stated in the relevant plan or backup service.

15. Security and Abuse Incidents

APNCloud may take immediate action to protect customers, networks, IP reputation and infrastructure from abuse or security incidents. Protective measures may include traffic filtering, rate limiting, account isolation, temporary blocking, credential reset, service suspension or other proportionate controls.

Where a security incident originates from customer content, compromised credentials, vulnerable software or prohibited activity, resulting service restrictions are excluded from Qualifying Downtime. APNCloud will use reasonable efforts to notify the customer and provide information needed to restore lawful service when it is safe to do so.

16. Third-Party Dependencies

Hosting and internet services depend on data centres, transit providers, registries, registrars, software vendors, certificate authorities, hardware suppliers and other third parties. APNCloud remains responsible for the commitments it expressly makes in this SLA, but cannot guarantee the independent performance of services it does not control.

Where an incident originates with a third party but directly affects APNCloud-managed infrastructure, APNCloud will use commercially reasonable efforts to escalate, reroute, mitigate or restore service. Whether such downtime qualifies for a credit depends on the cause and the exclusions in this SLA.

17. Monitoring, Incident Communication and Records

APNCloud may monitor server health, network reachability, resource usage and other operational indicators to detect and diagnose incidents. Monitoring is used for service management and does not mean APNCloud continuously inspects customer content. Significant incidents may be communicated through the Client Area, email, a status page or support ticket.

Operational records retained by APNCloud may be used to investigate SLA claims. Customers should preserve their own logs where those logs may help identify application-level or intermittent problems.

18. Relationship to Refunds and Other Remedies

Service Credits under this SLA are separate from any rights a customer may have under the APNCloud Refund Policy, including any applicable initial-purchase refund period. An SLA credit is not a refund of the service and does not extend or restart a refund period.

Except where applicable law requires a different remedy, the Service Credit described in this SLA is the customer’s exclusive contractual remedy specifically for APNCloud’s failure to meet the 99.9% monthly availability commitment. Nothing in this SLA excludes rights or liabilities that cannot lawfully be excluded.

19. Changes to this SLA

APNCloud may update this SLA from time to time to reflect changes in services, infrastructure, law, industry practice or operational requirements. The current version will be published on the APNCloud website with an effective date.

Material changes that reduce an existing paid customer’s SLA protection will not be applied retroactively to a past incident. Where required by applicable law or contract, APNCloud will provide reasonable notice before a material change takes effect.

20. Contact and Escalation

Questions about availability, incident status or SLA credits should be submitted through the APNCloud Client Area or to the official support contact published on the APNCloud website. For account security, billing or service-specific matters, APNCloud may require the request to come from an authenticated account holder.

Current general support contact:

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://apncloud.com

APNCloud will review qualifying SLA disputes in good faith using available monitoring and operational evidence. Nothing in this section prevents either party from using any dispute-resolution procedure contained in the Terms of Service.

21. Company Information

APNCloud is operated by APN CLOUD LTD.

• Company: APN CLOUD LTD
• Company No.: 17284647
• Registered Office: 82A James Carter Road, Mildenhall, England, IP28 7DE, United Kingdom
• Website: https://apncloud.com
• Support: [email protected]

This SLA should be read together with the APNCloud Terms of Service and applicable service-specific policies. If any provision of this SLA conflicts with mandatory law, the mandatory law will apply to the extent of that conflict.