Table of Contents
1. Service Availability Target
Braille Link targets a monthly service availability of at least 99.5% for paid plan subscribers, which allows roughly 3 hours and 40 minutes of unplanned downtime in a calendar month. This is a target backed by the service credits in Section 5, not a guarantee that the Service will never be interrupted.
1.1 What "Available" Means
The Service is considered "available" when users can sign in, submit translation requests, and receive responses through the Braille Link web application. Degraded performance (slower-than-normal response times) without complete outage does not constitute unavailability for the purposes of this SLA.
1.2 Monthly Availability Targets by Plan
- Institution Annual Plan: 99.5% monthly uptime — SLA applies, service credits available.
- Personal Annual Plan: 99.5% monthly uptime — SLA applies, service credits available.
- Personal Monthly Plan: Best-efforts availability — no formal SLA credit commitment.
- Free Trial: No SLA commitment.
2. Scheduled Maintenance
Planned maintenance windows are excluded from uptime calculations. Braille Link will provide at least 24 hours advance notice of any scheduled maintenance that is expected to cause service interruption.
2.1 Notification
Maintenance notices are shown as a notice inside the platform. Where maintenance is expected to interrupt an institution's use, we also aim to email the institution's administrator, who is responsible for informing their users. Email notice is not guaranteed for every maintenance event.
2.2 Maintenance Windows
Scheduled maintenance is typically performed during low-usage periods (weeknights and weekends, East Africa Time). We aim to limit any individual maintenance window to a maximum of 4 hours. Maintenance that overruns the notified window will be treated as unplanned downtime for the excess duration.
2.3 Emergency Maintenance
In rare circumstances, emergency security patches or critical infrastructure repairs may require unscheduled maintenance with less than 24 hours' notice. We will notify affected users as quickly as possible and provide updates throughout the maintenance period. Emergency maintenance is counted as scheduled maintenance and excluded from SLA downtime calculations only if it is necessary to prevent a security breach or data loss.
3. Incident Response Times
Braille Link classifies incidents by severity. The times below are targets that apply during support hours (Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM East Africa Time). We do not staff a round-the-clock operations desk. Outside support hours we respond to critical incidents on a best-efforts basis as soon as we become aware of them.
Critical — Platform Completely Unavailable
The Service is entirely inaccessible to all users or all translation requests are failing.
- Initial response: Within 4 support hours of the incident being reported or detected.
- Resolution target: We work on it continuously until service is restored and send updates to affected institutions as the situation changes.
High — Major Feature Unavailable
A core feature (for example image translation, document export, or sign-in) is completely broken, but the rest of the platform is accessible.
- Initial response: Within 1 business day.
- Resolution target: Best-efforts resolution within 3 business days.
Medium — Partial Feature Degradation
A feature is working but with significant slowness, intermittent errors, or reduced accuracy that impairs normal use.
- Initial response: Within 2 business days.
- Resolution target: Best-efforts resolution within 10 business days.
Low — Minor Issues or Cosmetic Defects
Minor bugs, cosmetic issues, or edge-case errors that do not significantly impair normal use.
- Initial response: Within 5 business days.
- Resolution target: Addressed in a scheduled release; no guaranteed timeline.
4. Uptime Calculation
Monthly uptime percentage is calculated as follows:
Uptime % = ((Total minutes in month − Unplanned downtime minutes) / Total minutes in month) × 100
The following are excluded from downtime calculations:
- Scheduled maintenance windows (with at least 24 hours' notice).
- Downtime caused by force majeure events (see Section 6).
- Downtime caused by the customer's own actions, including misuse that triggers protective rate limiting.
- Downtime caused by third-party services outside Braille Link's control (for example payment processors, email delivery, or online speech services).
- Periods of degraded performance that do not constitute complete unavailability.
Uptime data is derived from availability records reported by our cloud infrastructure provider (Render). Availability reports for institutional subscribers are compiled from provider-reported data and made available upon written request.
5. Service Credits
If the monthly uptime falls below the 99.5% SLA target due to unplanned downtime attributable to Braille Link, eligible subscribers may claim a service credit. Credits are calculated manually by our team upon a verified credit request and applied to future invoices.
- For each 1% (or fraction thereof) that uptime falls below 99.5%, a credit of 10% of the monthly subscription fee (pro-rated for annual plans) will be calculated and applied.
- The maximum total credit for any single calendar month is 30% of that month's subscription fee.
- Credits are applied as a reduction against future invoices and are not redeemable as cash.
- Credits expire 12 months after issuance if not applied to an invoice.
5.1 How to Claim Credits
To request a service credit, submit a written request to support@tusomebraille.com within 30 days of the end of the affected calendar month. Include your account email, the dates and duration of the outage(s), and a description of the impact. We will manually verify the downtime against our infrastructure provider records and respond within 10 business days.
5.2 Credit as Sole Remedy
Service credits described in this SLA are your sole and exclusive remedy for service unavailability. Credits do not affect the limitation of liability provisions in the Terms of Service.
6. Exclusions
This SLA does not apply, and no service credits will be issued, for downtime or degraded performance caused by:
6.1 Force Majeure
Events beyond Braille Link's reasonable control, including but not limited to: acts of God, natural disasters, floods, fires, earthquakes, epidemics, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labour disputes, governmental actions, internet backbone failures, or widespread power outages affecting data centre infrastructure.
6.2 User Error
Outages or service degradation caused by the subscriber's own actions, including exceeding rate limits through bulk requests, submitting malformed inputs, or actions that trigger automated security controls.
6.3 Third-Party Services
Failures in third-party systems that Braille Link relies upon but does not control, including payment processors, email delivery providers, online speech services, browser-extension stores, DNS providers, and internet service providers. A general outage of our hosting provider is counted as downtime for credit purposes unless it is a force majeure event under Section 6.1.
6.4 Scheduled Maintenance
Maintenance windows communicated at least 24 hours in advance, as described in Section 2.
6.5 Trial Accounts
Accounts on a free trial are not covered by this SLA.
7. Reporting
During a known outage or maintenance period, a notice is displayed within the platform. Users experiencing issues are encouraged to contact support before assuming a full platform outage.
Institutional subscribers may request an availability report by contacting support@tusomebraille.com. Reports are compiled from our infrastructure provider's availability data, issued within 10 business days of request, and cover the preceding calendar month.
To report an outage or service degradation, contact us at the support channels listed in Section 8. Please include a description of the issue, when it started, which features are affected, and any error messages you have observed.
8. Support Channels
Braille Link provides the following support channels for subscribers:
- Email Support: support@tusomebraille.com — for general enquiries, incident reports, and credit requests. Response within 2 business days for paid plans.
- Billing Support: admin@tusomebraille.com — for payment issues, invoices, and credit note requests.
- Security Issues: support@tusomebraille.com — for reporting security vulnerabilities or suspected breaches.
- Institution Onboarding: We help institutions get set up by email, and by call where agreed. Ask us at support@tusomebraille.com.
Support is available Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM–6:00 PM EAT, excluding Ugandan public holidays. Outside those hours we respond to critical incidents on a best-efforts basis, as described in Section 3.