Delivery and Reliability
Why Webhook Providers Cannot Guarantee Delivery
Webhooks are widely used for system integrations, but developers often assume webhook events are always delivered. In reality, no webhook provider can guarantee delivery.
Many developers treat webhooks as reliable messaging systems. A payment provider sends an event, the application processes it, and the workflow continues.
But webhook systems are built on top of normal HTTP requests. Because of that, delivery cannot be guaranteed.
Providers like Stripe, Paddle, and GitHub do their best to retry failed deliveries, but there are still scenarios where webhook events can be lost.
Why webhook delivery is not guaranteed
Webhooks rely on multiple systems working correctly at the same time. A failure in any layer can cause delivery problems.
- Network connectivity issues
- DNS failures
- Temporary server outages
- Timeouts while processing requests
- Provider retry limits being exceeded
Even if providers retry events multiple times, there is always a point where retries stop.
How webhook providers handle failures
Most providers implement retry mechanisms when webhook delivery fails.
Stripe retries failed events for several hours using exponential backoff. Paddle follows similar strategies.
However, retries only reduce the chance of losing events. They do not eliminate the risk entirely.
This is why webhook handlers must be designed to safely process retry events.
HTTP is not a messaging system
Webhooks are often mistaken for message queues, but they are simply HTTP requests sent to another server.
Unlike message brokers such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or SQS, HTTP does not provide guaranteed delivery semantics.
A network interruption, DNS issue, or temporary outage can interrupt delivery at any point in the request lifecycle.
Because of this limitation, webhook integrations must always be designed with retry handling and reconciliation strategies.
Designing systems that tolerate webhook loss
Production systems should never rely solely on webhook delivery.
Instead, engineers typically combine webhooks with additional safeguards.
- Idempotent webhook processing
- Periodic reconciliation jobs
- Monitoring webhook endpoint behavior
- Detecting unusual retry patterns
These strategies help detect missing events before they affect users.
If you are implementing webhook handlers in Laravel, see our guide on idempotent webhook handling .
The real challenge: detecting missing webhook events
The hardest problem with webhook systems is not failed requests, but failures that go unnoticed.
When webhook events silently fail or stop arriving, systems may drift out of sync without any immediate error.
Monitoring webhook endpoints and tracking delivery patterns helps engineers detect these problems early.