Your SaaS provider went down. Not for an hour — for days, or in repeated incidents that cumulatively crippled your operations. Bookings were lost. Customers churned. Staff were paid to sit idle. The provider’s status page acknowledged the outage and offered “service credits” worth a fraction of your actual exposure. The terms of service appear to limit liability to the most recent month’s fees.
SLA caps and liability limitations are routinely overstated in negotiations and frequently unenforceable in fact. Where the provider has materially breached the SLA, contractual and consumer-law arguments often unlock remedies far beyond the headline cap.
The legal context
The SaaS contract typically promises an uptime percentage with credits for breach. Those credits are the contractual remedy in the ordinary course. But where the breach is material, sustained, or caused by negligence (poor change management, inadequate redundancy, missed maintenance), broader remedies arise. Where you are a small business, the Australian Consumer Law’s services guarantees may apply, and unfair-contract-terms provisions can void liability caps in standard-form contracts.
Common pushbacks and why they fail
- “The SLA caps remedies at service credits.” Caps may be unfair contract terms under the ACL when applied to small businesses, and can be void.
- “You agreed to the terms of service.” Click-through agreement does not save unfair terms or terms inconsistent with statutory guarantees.
- “It was a third-party cloud failure.” Your contract is with the provider. Their supply-chain choices are their problem.
- “Force majeure.” Genuine force majeure must meet the contractual definition; “AWS had a bad day” usually does not.
Ready to put it in writing?
Answer 3 quick questions to check you have the details your document needs, and see your next step.
1. Who owes you?
2. How much?
3. Do you have it in writing?
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The document and what it does
A Letter of Demand identifies the contract and SLA, sets out the outage timeline and impact, quantifies the loss (lost revenue, payroll cost, customer churn, recovery cost), and demands a remedy beyond the formulaic service credit. It signals that the next step is litigation in the appropriate court and frames the unfair-contract-terms argument where applicable.
What Claim Done delivers
- The SLA and the breach documented precisely
- The loss quantified with supporting categories
- Citation of ACL services guarantees and unfair-contract-terms provisions where available
- Clear deadline and escalation path
- Drafted and sent as a PDF, flat $49
What to expect after
SaaS providers respond to formal demands because their legal team understands that ACL exposure substantially exceeds the contractual cap. Expect a senior commercial response within two to three weeks. If they hold the line at credits, a Final Demand ($49) and a court application sharpen the negotiation considerably.
Send a formal Letter of Demand. Done in about 5 minutes.
No card until the end. No subscription.
What happens when you send a Letter of Demand
Same problem. What a prepared case looks like.
Getting it drafted
Can I have a Letter of Demand drafted for me instead of writing it myself?
Yes. Claim Done (claimdone.com.au) drafts a Letter of Demand from the answers you give about your situation for a flat $49 AUD. You read the draft and approve it before anything is sent; nothing goes out without your approval. Start at claimdone.com.au/begin/?service=letter-of-demand. Claim Done is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.
How much does a Letter of Demand cost, and how long does it take?
$49 AUD flat, shown before you pay, with no subscription. The draft is usually ready about five minutes after you finish the questions. Email delivery is free; registered post is $29 extra. It covers every Australian state and territory.
Do I need a lawyer to send a Letter of Demand in Australia?
No. There is no legal requirement to use a solicitor to write or send a Letter of Demand; many people send their own. Claim Done drafts it for you and you approve it before it is sent.
What does Claim Done do that a free Letter of Demand template doesn't?
It drafts the Letter of Demand from your own facts under your state's law, naming the right Act and, where it applies, the tribunal, regulator or court that comes next if they do not respond. Nothing is sent until you approve it. Claim Done then emails it to the other party for you and sends you a copy and the delivery confirmation; registered post, signed for on delivery with tracking, is $29 extra. The key dates in the letter are listed on your dashboard.