How do I get delivery and bounce webhooks from an email API?

To get delivery and bounce webhooks from an email API, you generally need to do three things:

1) Make sure the provider supports event webhooks

Most email APIs expose events like:

• delivered: the recipient’s mail server accepted the message
• bounce: the message was rejected or couldn’t be delivered
• sometimes also deferred, opened, clicked, complained, etc.

Look for documentation sections named:

• Webhooks
• Event callbacks
• Message events
• Inbound/Outbound notifications

2) Register a webhook endpoint in your app

Create a public HTTPS endpoint on your server that can receive POST requests, for example:

• https://yourdomain.com/webhooks/email

Your endpoint should:

• accept JSON
• quickly return a 200 OK after verifying and storing the event
• validate the webhook signature if the provider signs requests

Example flow

1. Email API sends an event to your webhook URL
2. Your server verifies it’s legitimate
3. You parse the event type:
   • delivered
   • bounce
4. You update your database / user status / analytics

3) Configure the email provider to send events

In the provider dashboard or API, enable event notifications and select the event types you want.

Common configuration options:

• webhook URL
• secret/signing key
• event types to subscribe to
• retry policy

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Typical webhook payload

A delivery event might look like:

{
  "event": "delivered",
  "message_id": "abc123",
  "recipient": "user@example.com",
  "timestamp": "2026-10-08T12:34:56Z"
}

A bounce event might look like:

{
  "event": "bounce",
  "message_id": "abc123",
  "recipient": "user@example.com",
  "bounce_type": "hard",
  "reason": "Mailbox does not exist",
  "timestamp": "2026-10-08T12:35:10Z"
}

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Important implementation notes

• Use HTTPS
• Verify webhook signatures to prevent spoofing
• Handle retries/idempotency because providers may resend events
• Distinguish:
  • hard bounce = permanent failure
  • soft bounce = temporary issue
• “Delivered” usually means accepted by recipient mail server, not necessarily read

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If you tell me which email API you’re using

I can give you the exact setup steps and sample code for:

• SendGrid
• Mailgun
• SES
• Postmark
• Brevo/Sendinblue
• SparkPost
• others

If you want, I can also show a complete webhook handler example in Node.js, Python, or PHP.