SOP vs Work Instruction: What's the Difference?

A short, useful explanation of how SOPs differ from work instructions, with examples of each.

Definition and examples

A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) documents the policy, roles, and high-level steps of a process. A Work Instruction is the detailed how-to for one specific task within that process. SOPs answer "what and who"; work instructions answer "how".

SOP: "Handling a refund request" — defines purpose, roles, and 6 high-level steps.
Work Instruction: "Issuing a refund in Stripe Dashboard" — exact clicks, screenshots, edge cases.
SOP: "Onboarding a new customer." Work Instruction: "Setting up SSO in the customer's Okta tenant."

Frequently asked questions

Can a work instruction live inside an SOP?

Yes — many SOPs link out to detailed work instructions for specific steps.

Which should I write first?

Always the SOP. The work instructions follow once the process is stable.