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SLA's are never free from anyone, and if an agency is doing it for free without an ongoing contract they are leaving a ton of money on the table. For an enterp

SLA's are never free from anyone, and if an agency is doing it for free without an ongoing contract they are leaving a ton of money on the table. For an enterprise SLA like the one you are discussing, 2hr response, 4 hr fix, that would require a good sized retained services agreement from me and most agencies I know of. And that is how I would do it, make them pay you monthly for the RSA or quarterly etc. As for how you manage it so you can keep your manhood in tact, which I can totally relate to... Find another freelancer that you can trust, train them on the system as well and use him/her to back you up. Pay them for the time you would be away. E.g. if you are gone for 2 weeks of time, and a monthly fee is $2k then pay them $1k for being on call and ready. Also for the 4 hr fix, you need to make sure that it is not a guaranteed fix within 4 hrs as not all problems can be addressed in 4 hours. There is standard wording to address this in contracts and make them comfortable. What they are looking for is that for security issues and simple things that are emergent that pop up they get squashed quickly. But unless they are totally unreasonable they will understand that you can't guarantee in software that any issue they bring can be solved in 4 hours.

akbar501 12y ago
> SLA's are never free from anyone This 1000x. SLAs are not free. Your time is not free. Nothing is free. No agency is doing ongoing support for free. Either a.) the potential customer is negotiating hard, or b.) the other companies have included this expense already in the main bid and have bounded the max hours they will provide support.
- porker 12y ago
  davismwfl and akbar501: thanks for your responses. I worded that part of my post badly: I meant to say that it's (pretty much) free for the agency to offer, though I'm sure they charge the clients a 'high market rate'. For the agency I was commenting on, by the time they've got 4-5 developers to carry the pager in turn, and offer them $100/week extra when on duty (and you can find alternative employment if you don't want to do it), it's very little overhead for them. Sure, not every developer knows the application code well enough to pin-point an issue quickly, but they've provided peace of mind to the client.
  - davismwfl 12y ago
    Just to point out, you can do the same thing those larger groups do to, just being a little more creative. Take the deal, get the monthly recurring revenue for yourself and find a freelancer, intern or other person capable of backing you up when needed. If you offer a reasonable rate to do it and there are a lot of people that will work with you. If you are interested in taking/bidding for the gig, but want some backup/help let me know, maybe we can help back you up. Contact details are in my profile.
kyllo 12y ago
Exactly. Recurring support commitment = recurring payment. And it should be highly profitable for you.

akbar501 12y ago

> SLA's are never free from anyone This 1000x. SLAs are not free. Your time is not free. Nothing is free. No agency is doing ongoing support for free. Either a.) the potential customer is negotiating hard, or b.) the other companies have included this expense already in the main bid and have bounded the max hours they will provide support.

porker 12y ago
davismwfl and akbar501: thanks for your responses. I worded that part of my post badly: I meant to say that it's (pretty much) free for the agency to offer, though I'm sure they charge the clients a 'high market rate'. For the agency I was commenting on, by the time they've got 4-5 developers to carry the pager in turn, and offer them $100/week extra when on duty (and you can find alternative employment if you don't want to do it), it's very little overhead for them. Sure, not every developer knows the application code well enough to pin-point an issue quickly, but they've provided peace of mind to the client.
- davismwfl 12y ago
  Just to point out, you can do the same thing those larger groups do to, just being a little more creative. Take the deal, get the monthly recurring revenue for yourself and find a freelancer, intern or other person capable of backing you up when needed. If you offer a reasonable rate to do it and there are a lot of people that will work with you. If you are interested in taking/bidding for the gig, but want some backup/help let me know, maybe we can help back you up. Contact details are in my profile.

kyllo 12y ago

Exactly. Recurring support commitment = recurring payment. And it should be highly profitable for you.