# Escalation policy

> The rules for who is alerted, in what order, and how long to wait before moving to the next person when nobody acknowledges.

URL: https://pagerless.dev/glossary/escalation-policy
Updated: 2026-10-22

## In Pagerless

An ordered list of people per account. Push, a call after 5 minutes, then the next person.

## Related terms

- [On call](https://pagerless.dev/glossary/on-call): Being the person responsible for responding when a production system breaks during a set period, including outside working hours.
- [Acknowledgement](https://pagerless.dev/glossary/acknowledgement): A responder's signal that they have seen an alert and are handling it, which stops further escalation.
- [Paging](https://pagerless.dev/glossary/paging): Interrupting a person to demand attention now, usually by push notification, phone call or SMS, named after the pagers on-call engineers once carried.