Maintenance and Support Agreement in Australia: Template and Key Clauses (2026)

A maintenance and support agreement in Australia sets out how a supplier keeps software, hardware or equipment running: what is covered, how fast the supplier must respond and fix faults, and what the customer gets when service levels slip. The value sits in a clear service level agreement, and the legal risk sits in how far warranties and liability can be limited, because the Australian Consumer Law applies to supplies of services and cannot be contracted out of where the customer is a consumer. This guide sets out the governing law, the key clauses and a working skeleton. It is general information, not legal advice; confirm a live deal with an Australian lawyer. ## What law governs a maintenance and support agreement in Australia? The agreement is a services contract, governed by general contract law plus: - Australian Consumer Law (ACL), Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth), regulated by the ACCC. It implies a guarantee that services are rendered with due care and skill and are fit for any stated purpose, and it controls unfair terms in standard-form contracts.

• Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles where support staff access systems holding personal information.
• GST under the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth), currently ten per cent, which the pricing clause should address. ## Key clauses to get right - Covered items and scope: exactly which systems, versions, modules or equipment are supported, and what is excluded (for example, customer-caused faults, third-party products or out-of-scope changes).
• Support tiers: how severity levels are defined, usually from a critical outage down to a cosmetic issue, with a clear test for each.
• Response and resolution times: the time to acknowledge a ticket and the target to restore or fix, set per severity level. Keep response and resolution separate.
• Uptime or availability: the committed availability figure for hosted services, how it is measured, and what is excluded (planned maintenance, force majeure, customer faults).
• Service credits: the remedy when the supplier misses a target, usually a credit against fees, with a stated cap. Say whether credits are the sole remedy for that failure.
• Maintenance windows and updates: planned maintenance, patches, upgrades and whether new versions are included.
• Warranties and limitation of liability: the services warranty, any cap on liability and exclusion of consequential loss, drafted to sit alongside the consumer guarantees.
• End of life and end of support: notice before a product reaches end of life, and what support remains after that date.
• Fees, GST and review: charges, what triggers extra charges, GST treatment and price review.
• Data protection and security: handling of personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 and the security controls support staff must follow. ## Australia-specific points that matter The key point is that the consumer guarantees in the ACL apply to services and cannot be excluded. The guarantee that services are supplied with due care and skill sits underneath any contractual warranty. Where the customer is a consumer, which under the ACL can include business customers acquiring services under a threshold amount, a supplier cannot simply disclaim all warranties. The ACL does, however, allow a supplier to limit liability for breach of certain guarantees to supplying the services again or paying the cost of doing so, provided that is fair and reasonable. Draft the limitation clause to use that permitted limit rather than a blanket exclusion. Standard-form maintenance contracts are also caught by the unfair contract terms regime, which since late 2023 carries civil penalties. One-sided terms, such as the supplier being able to vary service levels or fees at will, are at risk. Service credits should be framed as a genuine remedy, not a penalty, and it should be clear whether they are the customer's sole remedy for a missed level or sit alongside other rights. ## A simple drafting skeleton 1. Parties and date

2. Definitions (supported items, severity levels, uptime, credits)
3. Scope of maintenance and support
4. Support tiers and severity classification
5. Response and resolution targets
6. Availability commitment and measurement
7. Service credits and remedies
8. Maintenance windows, patches and upgrades
9. Fees, GST and price review
10. Warranties and limitation of liability
11. Data protection and security
12. End of life and end of support
13. Term, renewal and termination
14. Dispute resolution and governing law (an Australian state or territory)
15. Signatures ## Common mistakes to avoid - Trying to disclaim all warranties when the ACL consumer guarantees cannot be excluded.

• Merging response and resolution into one number, so neither is enforceable.
• Leaving availability undefined or without stated exclusions, so every outage becomes a dispute.
• Using one-sided variation or fee terms that now risk penalties under the unfair contract terms regime.
• Giving no end-of-life notice, so the customer is stranded on an unsupported product. ## Keeping support contracts under control If you run maintenance and support across several suppliers or products, the hard part is not one agreement. It is tracking which uptime figure applies to which service, what the response and resolution targets are, when service credits are due and when each contract renews or a product hits end of life. That work, drafting from a tuned template, flagging one-sided or risky clauses, tracking renewals and keeping versions straight, is what an AI contract workspace can hold in one place. Adira is built for this, with per-clause risk review, plain-English clause editing and a live activity timeline; it is one AI workspace tuned to your company and built on Claude. It is India-first today with other jurisdictions on its roadmap, so verify local depth before relying on it for Australian law. More at Adira. The law above stands on its own. ## Bottom line An Australian maintenance and support agreement turns on a clear SLA and on how far warranties and liability can be limited. The consumer guarantees cannot be excluded, but the ACL lets a supplier limit certain liability to re-supply where fair and reasonable, and one-sided standard terms now carry penalties. Define tiers, response and resolution times, availability and service credits precisely, and get Australian advice before signing a real deal.