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Planned Downtime Communication Template
Free planned downtime communication template for product teams. Notify customers of maintenance windows with clear timing, impact scope, and status...
Updated 2026-03-05
Planned Downtime Communication
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Frequently Asked Questions
How much advance notice should we give for planned downtime?+
72 hours minimum for standard maintenance under 4 hours. 2 weeks for extended downtime (8+ hours), infrastructure migrations, or changes that require customer preparation (IP allowlists, certificate updates). For emergency security patches, 24 hours is acceptable with an explanation of why shorter notice was necessary.
Should we schedule maintenance for weekends or weekdays?+
Weekends during off-peak hours (Saturday night UTC) are standard for B2B SaaS. Weekday maintenance during business hours should only happen if the maintenance window is under 15 minutes and the impact is limited to a subset of features. Enterprise customers with SLAs may have contractual maintenance window requirements. Check your SLAs before scheduling.
How do we handle maintenance that runs longer than expected?+
Update your status page immediately when you realize the window will extend. Post a revised ETA. If the delay is significant (2x the original estimate or more), send an email update to affected customers. Do not stay silent and hope nobody notices. Customers check your status page when they cannot log in. An outdated status page is worse than no status page.
Should we offer SLA credits for planned downtime?+
Most SLAs exclude pre-announced maintenance windows from uptime calculations. Check your SLA terms. If the maintenance exceeds the pre-announced window, the overage may count against your SLA. For enterprise customers, proactively offering a credit for extended unplanned overage builds goodwill and prevents escalations.
What tools should we use for status page updates?+
Statuspage (by Atlassian), Instatus, Better Uptime, or a custom status page. The key features you need: scheduled maintenance announcements, real-time incident updates, email/SMS subscriber notifications, and a public URL you can share. Do not use your main product to host your status page. If your product is down, your status page needs to be up. ---
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