Quick Start Guide

Get webhook ingestion, automatic retries, and full delivery observability running in under 5 minutes. No infrastructure to manage, no queues to configure.


Step 1

Create an account and API key

Sign up at hookroute.dev/auth/sign-up to start your 14-day free trial. Then navigate to API Keys in your dashboard and create a new key. Give it a descriptive name (e.g. “Stripe production”) and set your destination endpoint — the URL where HookRoute will forward incoming webhooks.

You'll receive an API key that looks like hr_k1_abc123.... This key is shown once — store it securely. HookRoute hashes all keys at rest using SHA-256 so they can never be read back.

Step 2

Point your services to HookRoute

Copy your unique HookRoute webhook URL from the dashboard and paste it into your third-party service's webhook settings. HookRoute works with any service that sends HTTP webhooks — Stripe, GitHub, Shopify, Twilio, SendGrid, Clerk, Resend, and thousands more.

Example: sending a webhook to HookRoute
curl -X POST \
  https://hookroute.dev/api/webhooks/ingest \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_KEY>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-Event-Type: payment.completed" \
  -d '{"text":"Payment completed: evt_123 for $49.99"}'
Step 3

HookRoute handles delivery and retries

When a webhook arrives, HookRoute immediately stores the full payload, headers, and metadata, then forwards it to your destination endpoint. If your endpoint returns a non-2xx status code or times out, HookRoute automatically retries with exponential backoff — up to 5 attempts on the Growth plan.

Successful delivery response
{
  "webhook_id": "d3f1a2b4-5678-9abc-def0-123456789abc",
  "status": "delivered",
  "endpoint": "https://api.yourapp.com/hooks",
  "response_status": 200,
  "duration_ms": 42,
  "attempts": 1
}
Step 4

Monitor, inspect, and replay

Open your dashboard to see every webhook in real time. Click any event to inspect the full request headers, JSON payload, and every delivery attempt with response codes and timing. Need to re-deliver a webhook? Hit Replay and HookRoute sends it again instantly.


Key concepts

Webhook ingestion

HookRoute provides a unique HTTPS endpoint for each API key. Incoming requests are validated, stored with full headers and metadata, and queued for delivery — all in under 50ms.

Automatic retries with exponential backoff

Failed deliveries are retried automatically. The backoff schedule increases the delay between each attempt (roughly 30s, 2m, 15m, 1h, 4h) to avoid overwhelming a recovering endpoint. Retry counts vary by plan (3–5 attempts).

Delivery observability

Every delivery attempt is logged with the HTTP status code, response body (truncated), round-trip time, and timestamp. The dashboard lets you filter by status, event type, and date range so you can debug issues fast.

Webhook replay

Replay re-sends the original webhook payload to your current destination endpoint. This is useful when you've deployed a fix and need to reprocess events that previously failed.

API key security

API keys are hashed at rest using SHA-256. Row-level security in the database ensures complete data isolation between accounts. Keys can be rotated without downtime by creating a new key before revoking the old one.


What's next?

  • Compare plans to find the right event volume and retention for your workload.
  • Set up failure alerts to get notified via email when deliveries fail.
  • Add multiple destinations to fan-out a single webhook to several endpoints.
Start your free trial