What is an SLA vs MSA?

An MSA is the master service agreement: the umbrella contract setting the legal terms of an ongoing relationship, payment, liability, IP, and termination, signed once. An SLA is a service level agreement: the measurable performance promises inside that relationship, like 99.9% uptime or four-hour response times, with defined remedies when they are missed.

The SLA is often a section or exhibit of the MSA rather than a separate document, which is why people ask whether the SLA is part of the MSA. It can be either.

The full stack reads: MSA governs the relationship, SOWs define each project's scope and price, and SLAs set the ongoing performance bar. Small engagements collapse all three into one service agreement, and that is fine; the concepts matter more than the document count.

This consulting statement of work shows how the project layer is written.