What Are Webhooks?

Webhooks confirm the reality that every conspiracy theorist has already convinced themselves: man-made technology is sentient. 

The truth is a lot less cinematic than anything involving rogue androids.

Machines aren’t secretly plotting world domination, but they do pass information around in ways that feel oddly conversational. They do it because humans told them to. And because it saves you time, energy, and sanity.

If you’ve ever wondered how apps manage to notify each other so quickly, or how your tools seem to know what your other tools are doing, that’s the general idea behind webhooks.

Think of them as tiny automated messages that fire off exactly when something happens. It may look mysterious at first glance, but once you see how webhooks work, the whole thing feels surprisingly down to earth.

Before we dig into examples, here’s the short version in plain language so you know what you’re dealing with:

A webhook is an automated message that one application sends to another when a specific event occurs. It uses a simple HTTP request to deliver data in real time, usually in JSON format, to a URL you set up in advance.

What Is a Webhook?

Technically speaking, a webhook is a user-defined HTTP callback. If that phrase reminds you of a manual for a home appliance you’ve never used, that’s normal. It helps to break it apart a bit.

HTTP, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol, is the method the web uses to move text, images, and other resources around.

Since webhooks rely on the same protocol, you can integrate them into almost any web service. What makes them valuable isn’t the protocol itself, but the way a webhook reacts when something specific happens.

A webhook waits for a trigger. You choose the trigger ahead of time. Maybe a customer leaves a comment on a blog post, or someone pushes new code to a repository, or you get a fresh order in your store.

When that trigger fires, the webhook sends a small packet of information to a URL you’ve already configured. That URL is sometimes called the webhook endpoint.

In simple terms, the webhook is a lightweight mechanism for sending automated messages from one app to another, based on events you care about. It may sound almost too simple at first, but this is one of the reasons webhooks are so widely used.

You don’t need to write an elaborate integration or constantly poll another service to check for updates. You just wait for the event and let the message show up on its own.

How Do Webhooks Work?

Webhooks rely heavily on automation. You could imagine the internal logic as a bit of wiring inside each service, connecting a cause to an effect.

The end result is that one tool quietly informs another tool about something that just happened.

If you’ve worked with APIs before, webhooks may remind you of an API integration, although they tend to be less demanding and focus on a different pattern. APIs usually follow a request-and-response structure.

You ask for data, and the API returns whatever you need at that moment.

Webhooks flip that pattern. Instead of requesting information repeatedly, you’re giving another service permission to send you something the moment it becomes relevant.

As an illustration, imagine John Doe signs up for an email list for a product-related newsletter from your business. You’ve already set up a webhook through your customer relationship management (CRM) system that responds to this trigger.

What’s important to remember, here, is that webhooks communicate with applications rather than humans. Therefore, you will not be personally notified of the event in question. 

But if your CRM ‘catches’ the webhook (a common expression for webhook antics) the webhook will send the information to your membership site. 

For the applications in communication, the message might look something like this:

{
“event”: “new_subscriber”,
“name”: “John Doe”,
“email”: “johndoe@email.com”,
“timestamp”: “2025-01-18T12:45:03Z”
}

This example looks small on purpose. Real webhooks often include metadata, headers, or secret keys used to confirm the message is legitimate, but the overall shape tends to look like this.

Your membership website receives the data at the webhook endpoint, and it may choose to send John a welcome message, grant access to a new area, or simply record the signup for later reporting.

You don’t personally get notified, since webhooks are designed for applications rather than people, but the entire chain of events happens within seconds.

The convenience becomes more obvious when you imagine performing everything manually. You would have to keep checking for new signups, process each one, and then push every follow-up step through by hand.

It may be technically possible, but only in the same way that handwriting every invoice is technically possible. It’s doable, but nobody wants to spend their time that way.

Webhook Architecture in Practice

A typical webhook flow involves:

1. An event (like a new order or updated user profile)
2. A payload that describes what happened
3. A POST request sent to your webhook URL
4. Some action your application takes after receiving the message

That’s the entire machine. It appears simple at first, but subtle issues show up when events fail, when two services get out of sync, or when you receive duplicate payloads.

Many platforms try to smooth those problems with retries or unique event identifiers, and you’ll usually see mention of those in the provider’s documentation.

Security and Verification

Most modern services add a small security layer because anyone on the internet could theoretically send a POST request to your webhook URL.

Platforms may include a secret token, a signature header, or a timestamp to help you verify that the request actually came from the source you expect. It’s not the most complicated part of the job, but ignoring it tends to cause headaches.

Adding HTTPS is mandatory in nearly every case. Sensitive data moving across the internet without encryption is asking for trouble, so webhook providers typically insist on secure endpoints.

Retries and Delivery Failures

Even well-designed services occasionally fail to deliver a webhook.

Maybe your server is slow for a moment, or the receiving endpoint is briefly unavailable. Some providers are generous and will try again with a backoff pattern, but others may give up faster than you’d prefer.

It’s why developers often design their endpoints to be idempotent, which basically means the same event won’t break anything if it arrives twice.

None of this is especially complex once you get the hang of it, but recognizing that delivery can fail prepares you for oddities you might otherwise misinterpret as bugs.

Why Use Webhooks

Convenience still sits at the center of webhook adoption.

You cut back on repetitive tasks and free up time for work that actually moves your business forward. If you picture yourself checking for new subscribers all day and manually sending follow-ups, it becomes clear why automating the workflow seems so appealing.

Businesses rely on automation in every corner of their operations. Sales teams lean on automation tools to speed up handoffs.

Support platforms automatically create tickets when someone reaches out with a question. Even internal systems fire off events when logs cross a certain threshold. You may not notice all of it, but the savings add up.

Over time, lightening these small tasks can shape how your team scales.

When people aren’t drowning in manual processes, they can focus on strategy, planning, or anything that requires a bit of judgment.

Webhooks don’t solve everything, but they remove enough friction that it starts to matter.

Webhooks Use Cases

To better familiarize yourself with the concept of webhooks, check out some of these use cases where webhooks come in handy. 

Shopify

Shopify is an e-commerce platform that works with many successful brands. Businesses use Shopify to operate online retail activities. 

The platform has its own set of webhooks that can be useful for conveying important information. Some standard Shopify triggers for webhooks include the following:

• A user updates their shopping cart
• A user checks out
• A user initiates a refund

MailChimp

MailChimp is a marketing automation tool where email is the primary and only focus for business marketing schemes. 

Like Shopify, MailChimp provides webhooks to its users. Since MailChimp is tailored for email campaigns, events are more likely to include:

• A user subscription 
• A user unsubscription
• A profile update

Slack

Slack is a popular messaging application geared towards business communication. Users can create and manage various chat rooms and channels to keep teams organized. 

A big advantage of Slack is its ability to integrate with other common business applications like Google Drive, Jira, and Zoom. 

One common business app is 15Five, which permits business managers to track the performance and well-being of their employees. 

There is one segment of 15Five that encourages employees to essentially shout out other employees for the good work they’re doing. 

Integrate 15Five with Slack, and your employees’ shout-out or high five (the official term) will tag and notify the relevant team member through Slack. 

Webhook vs. APIs

Both webhooks and APIs share common themes of connectivity and communication between technologies. But they are distinct technical concepts. 

APIs are a back-end structure that follows a request/response pattern. A common example is Googling the weather from your smartphone. The information you receive in return is pulled from a reliable weather website using an API.

In a nutshell, APIs connect different software platforms in order to fulfill user requests. A comparable integration happens with webhooks, but the request/response loop is more immediate.

Some even call webhooks a subset of APIs. The Slack use case, for instance, could just as easily have been used to exemplify APIs. 

The distinguishing difference is that webhooks are more lightweight. They are also limited to web services, centering a particular type of communication by default. 

In practice, a non-technical API example would be the equivalent of calling a restaurant to see if your favorite dish is still available. 

With a webhook, you would simply access this information through your go-to order and delivery app. 

All in all, webhooks are less resource-intensive. They are the petite version of APIs. 

How To Use Webhooks in Your Business

Setting up webhooks depends heavily on the tools you’re using.

Providers usually keep a developer section somewhere in their documentation, although the terminology isn’t always ideal and may leave you wondering where to click next.

Searching for terms like “events”, “webhooks”, or “callbacks” often gets you where you need to go.

Once you find the documentation, the basic steps tend to follow a similar shape:

1. Choose an event type that matters to your workflow
2. Create or select a webhook endpoint to receive the message
3. Add the endpoint URL to the sending service
4. Test the webhook using a sandbox or a manual trigger
5. Handle the incoming payload and decide what your application should do next

Some platforms offer testing consoles that replay past webhook events, which can save a noticeable amount of time. If your tools don’t provide this, third-party testers are often available.

It’s worth noting that documentation can be oddly complicated in places, or the built-in webhooks may not cover everything you need.

That’s where experience makes a difference.

Trio works with teams that need custom integrations, whether they involve APIs, automation tools, or event-driven systems in general.

South American developers on our team have handled webhook-heavy projects across several industries, from commerce to analytics to finance.

When You Might Want To Hire Webhook Developers

Webhooks look simple enough on the surface, but things become more involved when you start handling retries, signatures, rate limits, or high-volume event streams.

If your team is juggling multiple integrations or building something that needs to run reliably under pressure, outside help may save you more frustration than you expect.

Trio’s developers work with event-driven architectures, API design, and real-time systems, so if you’re weighing whether to bring in assistance, you’re welcome to talk through your options with us.

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