That 99.99% SLA isn't a refund you'll ever collect

Heard this week from a managed-host churn meeting: customers still pick providers by the uptime number on the pricing page. Word is the credit math quietly kills it. Most managed SLAs only count full unreachable minutes, exclude maintenance windows, and cap credits at the monthly fee — and you have to file the claim yourself within days. A source at a mid-tier WP host says fewer than 2% of eligible accounts ever request a credit. The myth that four nines protects you is marketing; the architecture and the post-incident comms do.
Watch this: ask any rep to send a real credit they paid out last quarter. Silence is the answer.