What a Good Status Page Should Include

A good status page should include the current state of customer-visible services, a clear incident timeline, scheduled maintenance notices, and a way for customers to subscribe to updates. If it cannot answer “what is broken, who is affected, and when will you update again?” it is incomplete.

If you want the implementation side, see Create a public status page. This guide focuses on what should actually appear on the page.

Industry surveys find that the majority of enterprise buyers check a vendor’s status page or uptime history before or during a procurement evaluation. Based on operational experience at StatusPage.me, teams that publish incident history and component-level status consistently receive fewer inbound support tickets per incident than those that publish a single “all green” banner. The data point is straightforward: customers who can see what is happening stop asking.

1. Overall status

Start with a clear overall state.

Typical states are:

• Operational
• Degraded Performance
• Partial Outage
• Major Outage
• Maintenance

This gives customers a quick read before they scan details.

2. Customer-facing components

Components help customers understand scope.

For a typical SaaS, useful components are:

• Website
• API
• Authentication
• Email delivery
• Webhooks
• Mobile app

Components should match how customers experience the service, not how your infrastructure team labels internal systems.

3. Active incident feed

An active incident feed should include:

• incident title
• affected components
• current status
• timestamped updates
• expected next update time

Example:

4. Scheduled maintenance section

Maintenance should not be mixed into normal status text.

It needs its own section with:

• start and end time
• expected impact
• affected components
• completion update

For reusable copy, see Maintenance announcement template.

5. Historical incidents

Customers often check incident history before they ask support or evaluate reliability.

Historical records should stay visible and searchable. That helps with:

• customer trust
• support efficiency
• vendor due diligence
• internal review work

6. Subscription options

A status page should let customers subscribe to updates.

Common channels:

• email
• webhooks
• chat integrations
• RSS, if relevant for technical audiences

Without subscriptions, customers still have to remember to refresh the page manually.

7. Clear timestamps and timezone handling

Every incident and maintenance update needs a timestamp. Otherwise customers cannot tell whether an update is fresh or stale.

Use one consistent time format and make it obvious.

8. A simple incident state model

Most teams only need a few states:

• Investigating
• Identified
• Monitoring
• Resolved

Too many states make updates harder to maintain. Too few make timelines unclear.

9. Product links for deeper context

Operational content should connect back to implementation and product workflows where appropriate.

Useful internal links include:

• Create a public status page
• Learn how incident severity levels work
• Read status page examples

Minimal status page checklist

| Section             | Required?   | Why                           |
| ------------------- | ----------- | ----------------------------- |
| Overall status      | Yes         | Fast top-level signal         |
| Components          | Yes         | Scope and impact clarity      |
| Incident updates    | Yes         | Ongoing communication         |
| Maintenance notices | Yes         | Planned disruption visibility |
| History             | Yes         | Transparency and trust        |
| Subscriptions       | Recommended | Faster customer awareness     |
  

| Time   | Update                                  |
| ------ | --------------------------------------- |
| [time] | Investigating [issue].                  |
| [time] | Identified [cause or affected area].    |
| [time] | Monitoring recovery after [mitigation]. |
  

How StatusPage.me handles this

StatusPage.me lets you define components that match your customer-visible services, not your internal infrastructure naming. When you create an incident, you select affected components and add timestamped updates in the same workflow — the page updates immediately. Scheduled maintenance entries appear in their own section, separate from the active incident feed, so customers can distinguish planned work from live problems. Subscribers on email, webhooks, or chat integrations receive each update automatically. You can review how the full setup works at Create a public status page.

FAQ

What are the most important parts of a status page?

The most important parts are overall status, component status, incident updates, maintenance notices, and incident history. Those cover the main customer questions during operational issues.

Should every service become a component?

No. Only expose components customers can understand and that affect their experience in a meaningful way.

Should a status page include maintenance updates?

Yes. Planned work still affects customers, so it should be communicated with the same clarity as unplanned incidents.