Webhooks are often sold as instant automation. In production, they behave more like distributed systems: vendors retry at different intervals, payloads change, APIs throttle, and downstream platforms can be unavailable when important events arrive.
Persist before processing
The first responsibility of a webhook endpoint is to validate and store the event. Processing can happen after acknowledgement so vendor retries do not create duplicate side effects or long request times.
Make every event idempotent
A retry should not create duplicate contacts, memberships, invoices, or access credentials. Use stable event identifiers and destination lookups so each event can be processed more than once safely.
Give operators a replay path
A replay tool turns failures into manageable operations. When credentials expire or a destination API rejects a payload, the team can fix the cause and replay the affected event set without asking the vendor to send everything again.
Connect related resources
Stitchworks builds webhook integration infrastructure for teams that need durable SaaS automation. For budgeting tradeoffs, read what custom SaaS integrations cost to operate.