# Support response times

> How soon we usually reply to a ticket at each priority, which priority to pick, and what moves a ticket up the queue.

Source: https://rack4.io/help/support-response-times · Updated: 2026-11-04

Every ticket has a priority you pick when you open it, and each priority has a response target: how soon we aim to reply after your latest message. The ticket's page says it ("We usually reply within a day"). They're targets, not guarantees.

## Targets by priority

| Priority | Pick it for | We usually reply within |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Urgent | A production server is down | 2 hours |
| High | Something important isn't working | 8 hours |
| Normal | Most questions and problems | a day |
| Low | A question, no rush | 2 days |

The clock starts at your latest message, so a reply from you after ours starts it again. Tickets past their target are marked in our queue, and we work through those first.

## Picking a priority

- **Urgent** is for an outage that's hurting you now: a server that won't boot, a site that's down for your customers. Please don't use it for questions; it moves urgent tickets from other people down.
- **High** fits a broken feature you rely on, or a problem that will become urgent soon (a disk nearly full, a renewal that won't go through).
- **Normal** is right for almost everything else.
- **Low** is for "how do I…" and requests that can wait, like a custom setup or a reverse DNS change for next week.

You can't change a ticket's priority yourself after opening it. If things get worse, say so in a reply: we see every reply, and we can move the ticket up.

## While you wait

- Check [rack4.io/status](https://rack4.io/status). If the problem is ours and we know about it, it's posted there, with updates as we have them.
- Add anything new to the same ticket rather than opening another one, files included: screenshots and logs can go on any reply. Each new ticket starts at the back of the queue.
- If it's a server that won't respond, the [unreachable checklist](https://rack4.io/help/server-unreachable-checklist) has things to try, and the [serial console](https://rack4.io/help/serial-console) works even when the network doesn't.

When we reply, we email you, and the panel's bell shows it. You can answer from the email itself; see [Reply by email](https://rack4.io/help/support-tickets#reply-by-email).

## When a ticket waits on you

After we reply, the ticket waits on you. If we don't hear back, we email a reminder after 3 days, and close the ticket after 7 (at least a day after the reminder). When we reply but keep looking into something, the ticket stays **waiting on us** instead, and never closes by itself.

Reply within 14 days of a ticket closing and it opens again, with a few exceptions (an abuse report, a ticket we closed for good, or one already reopened 3 times); otherwise open a follow-up from its page. [Reopen a closed ticket](https://rack4.io/help/support-tickets#reopen-a-closed-ticket) has the details.

## Next steps

- [What to include in a support ticket](https://rack4.io/help/what-to-include-in-a-support-ticket)
- [Open and manage support tickets](https://rack4.io/help/support-tickets)