# TechSupport Team Severity Model (SEV0 to SEV4)

Source: TechSupport Team, https://techsupport-team.com/templates/incident-severity-levels/ (CC BY 4.0). Response times and update intervals are examples.

Apply the first matching level from SEV0 down. A workaround does not lower the severity of confirmed data loss or an active security breach. If you omit SEV0, include its criteria in SEV1. Define "many" and "some" for your own product before using this template.

| Level | Name | Criteria | SaaS examples | Response | Updates (example) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEV0 | Catastrophic (optional) | Full outage for all or most customers, confirmed data loss, or an active security breach | All customers cannot log in, in every region. Customer data is exposed. | All hands. Executive incident lead. Public status page. | Every 30 minutes |
| SEV1 | Critical | A core function is down or unusable for many customers. There is no workaround. | Payments fail for most customers. The API returns errors for most requests. | Page the on-call at any hour. Incident lead. | Every 30 minutes |
| SEV2 | Major | A core function is down or badly degraded for some customers. There is no workaround. | One region cannot export reports. Search fails for a large customer group. | Page the on-call at any hour. Incident lead. | Every 60 minutes |
| SEV3 | Minor | Partial loss or degradation. A workaround exists. | A dashboard is slow. One integration fails, and manual upload works. | Fix in working hours. Ticket in the queue. | Daily |
| SEV4 | Low | No impact on customer use, or a cosmetic issue. | A typo in the interface. A slow internal admin tool. One host fails behind a load balancer. | Ticket or backlog. | None |