The signal-bearing medium of claim 1 whereby the selection of a particular service level agreement is made by a prospective service customer and wherein the operations of receiving a selection of a new value; receiving an updated value; receiving an updated cost estimate and displaying the selected new value, the updated value and the updated cost estimate are repeated until a combination of an acceptable value for the at least one service variable, an acceptable value for the at least one service level attribute, and an acceptable value for the cost estimate are identified, wherein the operations further comprise:

receiving from the prospective service customer an indication that the selected particular service level agreement and the combination of the acceptable value for the at least one service variable, the acceptable value for the at least one service level attribute and the acceptable value for the cost estimate form a service level agreement acceptable to the prospective service customer, and transmitting the indication to a prospective service provider.