Service terms

Before you book

BriteThought provides remote consulting from Florida, United States. Contacting us starts a conversation. It doesn’t create an order, reserve a Priority slot or commit you to a payment. This website doesn’t take payments.

Before you pay, we’ll give you a written scope confirming that the service fits your environment, who collects the information, the price and applicable taxes, agreed dates, responsibilities, data handling and the terms to accept. Your accepted order sets the service-specific scope and dates. The service agreement covers general legal obligations and explains how any conflict is resolved. We agree additional work separately before billing it.

What your assessment covers

Each SQL Server service defines its own question, named databases, evidence window, investigation allowance and deliverables. Second Opinion, Slow Application Triage and Index & Query Tune-Up cover one named database; Health Check, Backup & Recovery Assessment and Setup Tune-Up cover up to five named databases on one instance. Recovery Proof covers one source database with up to 100 GB of allocated data and an isolated restore target, subject to the required checks before quoting. Each service is a one-time assessment or test. Subscriptions, ongoing monitoring and unlimited DBA support are outside the scope.

The assessment is complete when we’ve delivered the agreed investigation and report or test record. A diagnosis, a finding that no material issue is present, or an inconclusive result after we’ve accepted sufficient evidence may constitute completion when the report documents the findings, limitations and next useful test. Reaching a time limit alone, or failing to collect the required information before it is accepted, does not complete an assessment.

Recovery Proof records what happened during the agreed restore attempt. A failed attempt can complete the service if the report includes supporting evidence and explains the failure. If the prerequisites were never met, no test has been completed. The test does not certify future recovery or all of your organisation’s recovery objectives.

You can send one set of up to five questions about the report within ten business days of delivery. This follow-up is included; collecting new evidence, investigating new symptoms and making changes are separate. Managed includes one 30-minute findings call. Self-Service is written delivery unless we separately agree a call.

Collecting the information

With Self-Service, your team runs the compatible BriteThought Diagnostic Collector, reviews the output and sends it through an agreed channel. We analyse the results. We include one written review of collection status and, when useful, one request to rerun missing or failed modules or provide a limited alternative. Troubleshooting your permissions, security, network or execution environment, and remote sessions, are excluded.

With Managed, we collect and assess through appropriate temporary access using named accounts and your approved process. The service-specific allowance applies: Second Opinion, Health Check, Index & Query Tune-Up and Backup & Recovery Assessment include up to two hours of collection/live investigation; Slow Application Triage includes up to three hours; Setup Tune-Up includes up to 90 minutes. Recovery Proof is Managed-only, with up to three hours active work in one booked window of up to four elapsed hours. The findings call does not use up those collection or test allowances.

You’re responsible for permission to access and share information, accurate intake details, required metadata and vendor permissions, security decisions and suitable collection windows. Before collection, we confirm the compatible collector version, required information and approved transfer or access arrangements. Reads and sampling use resources and can compete with your workload. We can’t guarantee zero impact in every environment. Stop collection if the impact becomes unacceptable.

Granting access doesn’t authorise changes, restarts or persistent capture; those need separate approval. If we can’t assess an advertised category, we must explain the limitation before accepting the evidence. We must agree a narrower scope with you, or offer an upgrade or refund. Managed access cannot override security or hosting restrictions.

If Self-Service collection can’t be completed

If permissions, security, network, hosting or execution limits prevent sufficient Self-Service collection, the amount you actually paid, including any paid Priority premium, may be credited toward the equivalent Managed assessment of the same instance, databases and question. We review collection status and confirm that Managed collection is feasible first. Request the credit within 60 calendar days of purchase.

The credit is capped at the Managed price agreed in your upgrade quote. Taxes are recalculated separately. Credits have no cash value and can’t be transferred to another customer, product, environment or add-on. Any excess is refunded; the balance cannot be negative and the same payment cannot be credited twice. A standard Health Check moves from $995 Self-Service to $1,695 Managed with $700 remaining to pay. A new Priority reservation requires confirmed availability and does not preserve an expired slot.

If Managed collection also can’t proceed and analysis hasn’t begun, we cancel and refund the unperformed Self-Service assessment, including any unused Priority premium. If our collector has a defect, we must fix it, agree an alternative or refund the assessment if it can’t proceed. A collector defect must not force a paid upgrade. A completed assessment with an inconclusive result does not automatically qualify for a credit or refund. We may agree to apply the same credit if you switch modes before analysis starts, even without a collection failure.

Turnaround and Priority clocks

For diagnostic assessments, the Standard written-report target is five business days after complete intake and sufficient evidence are confirmed. Managed collection is normally scheduled within five business days after scope, payment and working access are confirmed. Its report target begins after agreed collection is complete, as a separate stage.

Priority Self-Service reserves analysis within one business day after sufficient data admission. Priority Managed reserves a collection start within two business days after working access and scope are confirmed. The report target is two business days after collection or data admission. Confirmation states the actual reserved start and target delivery date.

Recovery Proof has a separate test clock: Standard start targets five business days after target readiness, Priority start targets two, and the written test report targets two business days after the test. Target readiness and a booked test window are prerequisites; larger scopes receive explicit dates in the quote.

Clocks begin only after accepted scope, payment and required evidence or working access, followed by a readiness confirmation and dates. Receipt alone is not evidence acceptance. Pauses cover missing data, unavailable access, customer approvals, reproduction windows or agreed third-party dependencies. The reason, required action and revised dates are communicated; ordinary BriteThought workload is not a pause reason.

Service hours are Monday–Friday, 9 am–5 pm America/New_York, excluding observed US federal holidays. Outside-hours requests enter the next business-day queue unless a separate appointment is confirmed. Intake acknowledgement targets one business day; it is not technical completion or an emergency-response guarantee.

Priority requires confirmed availability before payment and changes scheduling, not scope. It does not include remediation, after-hours coverage, continuous emergency support or a resolution deadline. Active outages, inaccessible servers and suspected corruption need separate incident scoping. Payment alone creates no immediate-response commitment.

If BriteThought misses a confirmed Priority start/report date for reasons within its control, the Priority premium is refunded and the assessment retains its agreed scope. Customer delays and documented external dependencies do not trigger that remedy. Full cancellation/refund is available when no agreed work has started and no replacement date is accepted. An unconfirmed slot is not substituted after payment. Use Contact to discuss suitability and confirm availability. There is no online paid checkout.

What’s outside the scope

Production changes and remediation are separate. Diagnostic assessments do not include configuration changes, patches, index changes, new backups, production restores, failover tests, new monitoring, full table scans, new CHECKDB runs, application rewrites or execution of recommendation scripts. Where an applicable, validated standard template supports a material recommendation, we may include a candidate script with guidance on testing and reversing the change. Running it requires separate authorisation.

Recovery Proof includes the agreed isolated restore attempt and listed checks on the approved non-production target. It excludes production restore, corruption repair, unlimited retries, full logical validation and application/business acceptance testing unless separately scoped. Your service page sets out the remaining exclusions.

No assessment certifies security, compliance, freedom from corruption or recoverability, or guarantees improved performance, uptime, root-cause identification or a business outcome. Backup metadata is not a restore test; a passed isolated test does not certify every future backup or the entire recovery plan.

Continuous DBA coverage, enterprise audits, licensing opinions, migrations, hardware procurement and representation in vendor disputes are excluded. We agree the scope, price and approvals for additional work separately. There is no automatic billing beyond your agreed order.

Cancellation and orders that aren’t ready

You may cancel for a full refund before analysis of accepted evidence or Managed collection begins. Once work starts, we assess the work performed against the agreed deliverables without waiving mandatory customer rights. If your order isn’t ready to start within 30 days, we send a reminder and agree cancellation or a written extension. The order doesn’t silently expire. Your agreement, supplied before payment, records the cancellation terms for your engagement.

Your report and diagnostic information

You may share your report with your organisation, advisers, vendor and the people carrying out the recommendations. Findings are technical opinions; they do not provide legal, accounting, licensing or compliance certification. They don’t require a vendor to accept the findings or determine contractual liability. A qualified specialist reviews your report. We assign the reviewer; booking does not guarantee a particular founder or engineer’s participation.

Diagnostic information is sensitive. Send it only through a confirmed, approved channel. Read the privacy notice and the data-handling section on your chosen service page. Don’t send diagnostic files, credentials or payments through this website. We agree the engagement’s data-processing and retention arrangements before collection.