Work out your SLA compliance and reply deadlines.
For support teams, not server uptime. Get your SLA compliance rate, or enter when a message arrived to see when the first reply is due in business hours.Free, no sign-up · Updated November 11, 2026Short answer
SLA compliance rate is the conversations answered within the target, divided by all conversations that had a target, times 100. When only business hours count, a 4 hour target on a 9 to 5 day makes a message at 4:00 PM due at noon the next working day.Your SLA compliance rate
First reply due
How SLA compliance and due times are calculated
A customer service SLA (service level agreement) is a promise about time: how soon a customer gets a first reply, and how soon the problem is solved. Two numbers come out of it. The due time says when one conversation must be answered. The compliance rate says how often the team made it.
SLA compliance rate
Take the conversations answered within the target, divide by all the conversations that had a target, and multiply by 100. Last week 400 conversations had a first response target and 362 were answered in time: 362 divided by 400, times 100, is 90.5%. The other 38 missed. More on the metric in what is SLA compliance.
- Work it out for one target at a time. First response and resolution run on separate clocks, and a blended rate hides which promise is slipping.
- Leave out conversations that had no target, such as spam and automated mail.
- Read the misses as well as the rate. Which 38 conversations missed says more than 90.5% does.
First response time SLA and due times
A first response time SLA sets how long the first reply may take, counted from the customer’s first message. Many teams count business hours only, so a message on Saturday night cannot miss a target before anyone is back. The calculator works out the due time in four steps:
- If the message arrives inside business hours, the clock starts on arrival. If not, it starts at the next opening.
- Minutes count only while you are open.
- When a day closes with part of the target left, the rest carries to the next working day.
- The reply is due when the counted minutes reach the target.
A worked example: you are open 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday, with a 4 hour target. A message at 4:40 PM on Friday gets 20 minutes before closing. The other 3 hours 40 minutes run from 9:00 AM on Monday, so the reply is due at 12:40 PM on Monday.
The same math makes a 24 hour target longer than it sounds. With an 8 hour working day, 24 business hours is three working days. If you mean by this time tomorrow, count around the clock instead.
A business hours calculator for any deadline
The due time part also works as a business hours calculator or a response time calculator for anything else with a deadline. It adds working time to a start time and skips nights, weekends and the days you mark as closed. Set the target to the amount of working time you want to add.
Frequently asked questions
Divide the conversations answered within the target by all conversations that had a target, then multiply by 100. If 362 of 400 conversations got a first reply in time, the SLA compliance rate is 90.5%.
A target for how long a customer waits for the first reply, such as 4 business hours. It is measured from the customer’s first message to the first reply, in business hours or around the clock.
Only if you count around the clock. When you count business hours, the clock pauses at closing time and on days off, and a message that arrives overnight starts its clock at the next opening.
Not when you count business hours. With an 8 hour working day, a 24 hour target is three working days. For a reply by the same time tomorrow, count around the clock.
No. This calculator is for customer service response targets: when a reply is due and what share of conversations were answered in time. It does not turn an uptime percentage into allowed downtime.
It depends on what you promised. If the SLA promises a reply, an answer from an AI agent meets it. If it promises a reply from a person, keep the clock running until a teammate answers.
Yes. Aide Helpdesk has SLA policies with first response, next response and resolution targets. A policy can count business hours only, pausing outside your schedule and on holidays, and you choose whether a reply from the Aide AI Agent counts as the first response.
SLA targets, timed for you
Aide Helpdesk runs the SLA clocks, warns your team before a target is missed and alerts them when it is. The helpdesk is free. You pay for AI replies.