Paddle Webhooks
Paddle Webhook Events Explained
Paddle sends webhook events whenever something important happens in your billing system. Understanding what each event means helps ensure subscriptions, payments, and user access stay synchronized with your application.
Many SaaS products rely on Paddle webhooks to keep their internal systems updated. Instead of polling the Paddle API, your application receives notifications when a payment succeeds, a subscription changes, or a refund occurs.
Each webhook includes an event name that describes what happened. Handling these events correctly is essential for maintaining accurate billing state inside your application.
Common Paddle Webhook Events
Paddle provides many webhook events, but most SaaS applications interact with a small set of core billing events.
- payment_succeeded – A payment was completed successfully.
- subscription_created – A new subscription has been started.
- subscription_updated – Subscription settings or plan changed.
- subscription_canceled – The subscription has been cancelled.
- subscription_payment_failed – A payment attempt failed.
These events typically form the backbone of a SaaS billing integration.
Handling payment_succeeded
The payment_succeeded event confirms that a customer payment has been processed successfully.
Applications commonly use this event to:
- Activate a new subscription
- Extend an existing billing cycle
- Grant access to paid features
Because billing state depends on this event, it is important that webhook handlers process it reliably and avoid duplicate processing.
Handling subscription_created
When a customer first subscribes to a product, Paddle emits the subscription_created event.
Developers usually use this event to create or update a local subscription record tied to the user account.
The webhook payload contains important details such as the subscription ID, plan information, and customer data.
Handling subscription_updated
Subscriptions do not always remain static. Customers may upgrade plans, change billing cycles, or update payment methods.
The subscription_updated event notifies your system when these changes occur.
Your application should update its internal records so that product access reflects the current subscription status.
Preventing Duplicate Processing
Like many webhook systems, Paddle may resend events if delivery fails. Because of this behavior, webhook handlers should never assume an event will only arrive once.
A common strategy is storing the event identifier and ignoring events that were already processed.
This approach protects your system from duplicate actions such as activating a subscription multiple times.
Why Webhook Visibility Matters
Billing issues caused by failed webhooks can be difficult to diagnose. If a delivery fails silently, a payment might succeed in Paddle while your application never updates the user's access.
Monitoring webhook deliveries makes these situations easier to detect.
WebhookWatch provides visibility into webhook activity across providers like Paddle, Stripe, and GitHub, helping developers detect failed deliveries and retry behavior early.