# website monitoring
Planned Maintenance Notice Templates for SaaS Status Pages
Planned maintenance is an opportunity to demonstrate professionalism. Done well — clear notice, accurate timing, prompt "all clear" — it builds rather than erodes user trust. Done poorly, it feels like unplanned downtime with a disclaimer attached.
This guide covers when and how to communicate planned maintenance, with templates you can adapt for status pages, emails, and in-app banners.
Principles Before Templates
Give enough notice. For routine maintenance affecting a small number of users briefly, 24–48 hours is fine. For extended maintenance or anything affecting business-critical workflows, give at least a week's notice. For major migrations, two or more weeks.
Be specific about time. "Saturday morning" is vague. "Saturday 23 March, 02:00–04:00 UTC" is specific. Always include the timezone (UTC is safest since your users may be global) and local time equivalents if your user base is concentrated in a particular region.
Be clear about what will be affected. "Brief maintenance" tells users nothing. "Read-only mode for the dashboard — no new monitors can be added, but existing monitoring will continue" tells them exactly what to plan around.
Communicate when you're done. Post a completion notice promptly when maintenance finishes. Users checking your status page want to know it's over — don't leave an "in progress" maintenance notice up for hours after you've finished.
Under-promise and over-deliver on time. If you think maintenance will take 1 hour, schedule 2. Finishing early is a pleasant surprise; running over is a problem.
Template 1: Status Page — Scheduled Maintenance Notice
Post this 24–72 hours before maintenance.
Scheduled Maintenance — [Date]
We will be performing scheduled maintenance on [specific date] between [start time] and [end time] UTC ([local time equivalent]).
What will be affected: [List affected services — be specific. E.g., "The monitoring dashboard will be in read-only mode. Active monitors will continue running and alerts will still fire. No new monitors can be created during this window."]
What will not be affected: [List services that continue normally — reassure users about the things they care most about.]
We expect [full service / the affected features] to be restored by [end time]. If we finish earlier, we will post an update immediately.
We apologise for any inconvenience.
Template 2: Status Page — Maintenance Started
Post this at the start of the maintenance window.
Maintenance In Progress — Started [time] UTC
Scheduled maintenance has begun. [Brief description of what's happening.]
Estimated completion: [end time] UTC
We will post an update when maintenance is complete.
Template 3: Status Page — Maintenance Complete
Post this as soon as maintenance finishes.
Maintenance Complete — [time] UTC
Scheduled maintenance has been completed successfully. All services are operating normally.
Total duration: [X hours Y minutes] ([shorter / longer] than estimated).
Thank you for your patience.
If maintenance ran long, acknowledge it briefly:
Maintenance Complete — [time] UTC
Scheduled maintenance has been completed. All services are operating normally.
The maintenance ran approximately [X] minutes longer than scheduled due to [brief reason — e.g., "a larger-than-anticipated database migration"]. We apologise for the extended window.
Template 4: Email — Advance Notice to Customers
For significant maintenance windows, email affected customers directly. Send 3–7 days in advance.
Subject: Scheduled Maintenance – [Your Product] – [Date]
Hi [Name],
We're writing to let you know that [Product Name] will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on:
[Day, Date] from [start time] to [end time] UTC ([Equivalent in relevant timezone, e.g., "9pm–11pm Eastern"])
What this means for you: [Specific impact — what they can and cannot do during the window. Keep this concrete.]
What will continue working: [Reassure them about services that keep running.]
We've scheduled this work during [off-peak hours / the weekend] to minimise disruption. Our team will be available throughout and we expect to complete well within the scheduled window.
You can follow the maintenance progress at [your status page URL].
If you have any questions or this maintenance window causes significant difficulty for your team, please reply to this email and we'll do our best to help.
Thank you, [Your name] [Product Name] Team
Template 5: In-App Banner
Display this inside your application starting 24–48 hours before the window.
⚠️ Scheduled Maintenance: [Product Name] will undergo scheduled maintenance on [Day, Date] from [start time]–[end time] UTC. [Brief impact statement.] [Link to status page for details.]
Keep in-app banners short. Users dismissing them still need to have seen the key facts: date, time, and what's affected. Link to the status page for full details.
Template 6: Post-Maintenance Email (for extended or impactful windows)
If maintenance caused significant disruption or ran longer than expected, a post-maintenance email closes the loop.
Subject: Maintenance Complete – [Product Name] is fully operational
Hi [Name],
Our scheduled maintenance completed at [time] UTC today. All services are fully operational.
[If it ran long:] The maintenance took approximately [X] minutes longer than our planned window due to [brief explanation]. We apologise for the extended impact.
[Summary of what was done — optional, but appreciated for significant upgrades:] During this maintenance we [brief description of what changed or improved — e.g., "upgraded our database infrastructure to improve query performance and reliability"].
If you notice anything behaving unexpectedly, please contact us at [support email].
Thank you for your patience.
[Your name] [Product Name] Team
Timing Guide
| Maintenance type | Advance notice | Email customers? | Post completion? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Routine, brief, off-hours | 24 hours | No | Yes |
| Extended (2+ hours) | 48–72 hours | Yes | Yes |
| Major migration or upgrade | 1–2 weeks | Yes | Yes |
| Emergency maintenance | As much as possible | Yes (brief) | Yes |
Setting Up Maintenance Windows in Domain Monitor
Domain Monitor supports maintenance windows so scheduled downtime doesn't trigger false positive alerts to your team. Create a free account and configure maintenance windows to silence monitoring during planned work.
See maintenance windows for pro users for how to configure these in Domain Monitor, and how to create a public status page for setting up the status page where these notices live. If you're deciding whether your maintenance notices should appear on a customer-facing page, an internal engineering page, or both, see internal vs public status pages: when you need both.
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