How do I make webhook deliveries retry automatically?

To make webhook deliveries retry automatically, you generally need to do three things:

1. Return a failure status when delivery fails

   • If your webhook consumer can’t process the event, respond with a non-2xx HTTP status code:
     • 500, 502, 503, 504 for server issues
     • 400/422 only if the payload is invalid and should not be retried
   • Most webhook providers interpret non-2xx as “retry later.”

2. Have the sender implement a retry policy

   • Configure the webhook producer (the service sending the webhook) to retry on transient failures.
   • Common retry pattern:
     • exponential backoff
     • jitter
     • max retry count or max time window
   • Example:
     • retry after 1 min
     • then 5 min
     • then 15 min
     • then 1 hr
     • stop after N attempts

3. Make your handler idempotent

   • Retries can cause duplicate deliveries.
   • Include and store a unique event ID, and ignore repeats if already processed.

Typical setup

On the receiver side

• Process quickly
• If processing is long, acknowledge first and queue work
• Return 200 OK only when you’ve safely accepted the event

On the sender side

• Retry on timeouts and 5xx responses
• Do not retry on most 4xx responses
• Include a delivery attempt counter if possible

Example retry behavior

If the webhook endpoint returns 503, the sender should:

• wait a short interval
• resend the same payload
• keep retrying until success or retry limit is reached

If you’re using a specific platform

The exact steps depend on the system:

• Stripe / GitHub / Shopify / Slack / Twilio, etc. each has its own retry rules and settings
• Some platforms retry automatically and let you configure only the endpoint behavior
• Others provide dead-letter queues or manual redelivery tools

If you tell me which webhook provider or framework you’re using, I can give the exact configuration steps.