What are webhooks?

There are two ways your apps can communicate with each other to share information: polling and webhooks. As one of our customer champion's friends has explained it: polling is like knocking on your friend's door and asking if they have any chocolate (aka information), but you have to go and ask for it every time you want it. Webhooks are like someone tossing a bar of chocolate at your house whenever they buy some. You don't have to ask—they just automatically punt it over every time it's available.

Automate your way forward with Authenticate

Webhooks are automated messages sent from apps when something happens. They have a message—or payload—and are sent to a unique URL—essentially the app's phone number or address. Webhooks are almost always faster than polling, and require less work on your end.

They're much like SMS notifications. Say your bank sends you an SMS when you make a new purchase. You already told the bank your phone number, so they knew where to send the message. They type out "You just spent $10 at NewStore" and send it to your phone number +1-234-567-8900. Something happened at your bank, and you got a message about it. All is well.

Webhooks work the same way.