Redelivering Webhooks

Clearout Webhook redelivery guide with retries, backoff, and failure handling

This guide explains Clearout's webhook retry logic and redelivery system. When webhook deliveries fail, Clearout automatically retries with exponential backoff to ensure reliable delivery of your webhook events.

Retry Overview

Clearout automatically retries failed webhook deliveries to ensure your application receives important event notifications. The retry system uses exponential backoff to handle temporary failures while avoiding overwhelming your server.

When Retries Occur

Webhook retries are triggered when:

• HTTP Error Responses - Your endpoint returns 4xx or 5xx status codes

• Connection Timeouts - Your server doesn't respond within 30 seconds

• Network Issues - Temporary network connectivity problems

• Server Unavailability - Your webhook endpoint is temporarily down

Retry Limits

The number of retry attempts depends on your account type

Request Timeout

Each webhook request has a maximum timeout of 30 seconds. If your endpoint doesn't respond within this time, the request will be considered failed and retried.

Retry Schedule

Clearout uses exponential backoff for webhook retries, with delays that increase after each failed attempt:

Attempt	Delay After Previous	Cumulative Time
1st	Immediate	0 minutes
2nd	5 minutes	5 minutes
3rd	10 minutes	15 minutes
4th	20 minutes	35 minutes
5th	40 minutes	1 hour 15 min
6th	80 minutes	2 hours 35 min
7th	160 minutes	5 hours 15 min
8th	320 minutes	10 hours 35 min
9th	640 minutes	21 hours 15 min

Exponential Backoff

The retry delays approximately double with each attempt, providing time for temporary issues to resolve while preventing overloading your server with rapid retries.

Failure Handling

When all retry attempts are exhausted, the webhook delivery is permanently marked as failed:

Permanent Failure

• No More Retries - After the maximum number of attempts, no further retries will be made

• Failed Status - The webhook delivery is marked as permanently failed

• Event Logs - The failure is recorded in your webhook delivery logs

Manual Retry

Manual retry functionality is not currently available. Once a webhook delivery is permanently failed, it cannot be manually retriggered through the dashboard.

Monitoring

You can monitor webhook delivery status through the Clearout dashboard:

Event Logs

• Access Logs - Click the "View Event Logs" button in the webhook table

• Delivery Status - View success/failure status for each webhook delivery attempt

• Response Details - See HTTP status codes, response times, and error messages

• JSON Payloads - View the complete payload that was sent to your endpoint

Event Details

Click on any event in the logs to view detailed information including delivery status, response details, and the complete JSON payload.

Event details panel showing delivery status, response information, and JSON payload

Monitoring Recommendations

• Regular Checks - Monitor your webhook delivery logs regularly for failed deliveries

• Success Rate Tracking - Track your webhook delivery success rate over time

• Alert Setup - Consider setting up external monitoring for your webhook endpoints

• Performance Monitoring - Monitor response times to identify performance issues

Best Practices

Webhook Endpoint Reliability

• Fast Response - Return HTTP 200 status codes quickly (within 30 seconds)

• Idempotency - Handle duplicate webhook deliveries gracefully

• Error Handling - Implement proper error handling for webhook processing

• Queue Processing - Use message queues for asynchronous webhook processing

Duplicate Delivery Handling

• Event ID Tracking - Use the event_id field to track processed events

• Database Deduplication - Store processed event IDs to prevent duplicate processing

• Idempotent Operations - Design your webhook handlers to be idempotent

Performance Optimization

• Async Processing - Process webhook data asynchronously when possible

• Connection Pooling - Use connection pooling for database operations

• Resource Management - Ensure adequate server resources for webhook processing

• Monitoring - Implement comprehensive monitoring and alerting

Next Steps

Now that you understand webhook retry behavior, check out our FAQ for answers to common questions about webhooks.