How to Set Up SendGrid Webhook Notifications with Webhookify

SendGrid is one of the most widely used email delivery platforms, powering transactional emails, marketing campaigns, and automated email workflows for businesses of all sizes. When you send thousands or millions of emails through SendGrid, understanding what happens to each message is critical. Did it get delivered? Was it opened? Did it bounce? Did the recipient mark it as spam? SendGrid's Event Webhook provides real-time answers to all of these questions by sending HTTP POST requests to your specified URL whenever an email event occurs. With Webhookify, you can turn those raw webhook payloads into instant, human-readable notifications delivered to Telegram, Discord, Slack, Email, or your mobile device.

This guide walks you through the complete process of setting up SendGrid Event Webhooks with Webhookify so you can monitor your email delivery pipeline in real time without writing a single line of backend code.

Why Monitor SendGrid Webhooks with Webhookify?

• Catch Bounces Instantly: Hard bounces and soft bounces can damage your sender reputation if left unchecked. Webhookify sends you an immediate alert when a bounce occurs so you can remove invalid addresses from your lists before they cause deliverability problems.

• Track Engagement in Real Time: Know the moment a recipient opens your email or clicks a link. Get notifications pushed to your phone or Slack channel so your sales team can follow up with engaged leads while interest is still high.

• Spam Report Alerts: When a recipient marks your email as spam, you need to know immediately. Webhookify delivers instant spam report notifications so you can investigate and adjust your email practices before your sender reputation takes a hit.

• AI-Powered Readability: Raw SendGrid webhook payloads contain technical data like SMTP response codes, bounce classifications, and event metadata. Webhookify's AI transforms these into clear messages like "Email to john@example.com bounced -- mailbox full" so anyone on your team can understand them.

• No Server Required: Traditional webhook handling requires deploying and maintaining a server to receive POST requests. Webhookify eliminates this entirely -- you get a production-ready HTTPS endpoint in seconds, with built-in logging and notification routing.

Prerequisites

1. A SendGrid account with API access. Sign up at sendgrid.com if you do not have one.
2. At least one verified sender identity or authenticated domain in SendGrid.
3. A Webhookify account. Sign up for free at webhookify.app.
4. A notification channel configured in Webhookify (Telegram bot, Discord webhook, Slack workspace, or Email address).
5. Access to the SendGrid dashboard with permissions to manage Event Webhook settings.

Step-by-Step Setup Guide

https://hook.webhookify.app/w/your-unique-endpoint-id

SendGrid Webhook Events You Can Monitor

Here is a complete reference of SendGrid Event Webhook events that Webhookify can capture and forward as notifications:

Delivery Events:

• processed -- Email accepted by SendGrid for delivery
• delivered -- Email successfully delivered to the recipient's mail server
• deferred -- Email delivery temporarily delayed; SendGrid will retry
• bounce -- Email permanently or temporarily rejected by the recipient's server
• dropped -- Email will not be delivered (suppression list, invalid address, etc.)

Engagement Events:

• open -- Recipient opened the email (pixel tracking)
• click -- Recipient clicked a tracked link in the email
• unsubscribe -- Recipient clicked the unsubscribe link
• spam_report -- Recipient reported the email as spam
• group_unsubscribe -- Recipient unsubscribed from a specific group
• group_resubscribe -- Recipient resubscribed to a specific group

Each event payload includes metadata such as the recipient email address, subject line, SendGrid message ID, timestamp, SMTP response (for delivery events), user agent (for open/click events), and the clicked URL (for click events).

Real-World Use Cases

• SaaS Onboarding Monitoring: Track whether your welcome emails and activation emails are being delivered and opened. Get an instant Slack notification when a new user's activation email bounces so your support team can reach out via an alternative channel.

• E-Commerce Order Confirmation Tracking: Monitor delivery status of order confirmation and shipping notification emails. If a customer's order confirmation bounces, you receive an immediate alert and can contact the customer to verify their email address before they wonder where their receipt went.

• Marketing Campaign Performance: Receive real-time notifications when recipients open your marketing emails or click on promotional links. Route click events to a Discord channel so your marketing team can see engagement happening live during a campaign launch.

• Deliverability Health Dashboard: Use Webhookify to catch spam reports and bounces the moment they happen. By responding quickly to deliverability issues, you protect your sender reputation and maintain high inbox placement rates.

Example Notification

When SendGrid sends a bounce event webhook, Webhookify delivers a notification like this:

{
  "event": "bounce",
  "email": "jane.doe@example.com",
  "timestamp": 1740148320,
  "smtp-id": "<14c5d75ce93.dfd.64b469@ismtpd-555>",
  "sg_event_id": "bk9VtGWnTeeRm_ID3XKLOQ",
  "sg_message_id": "14c5d75ce93.dfd.64b469.filter0001.16648.5515E0B88.0",
  "reason": "550 5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist",
  "status": "5.1.1",
  "type": "bounce",
  "category": ["order-confirmation"]
}

Webhookify's AI-powered summary would display:

Email Bounce: Email to jane.doe@example.com bounced. Reason: "The email account does not exist" (hard bounce, status 5.1.1). Category: order-confirmation.

This clear summary lets you immediately understand the issue and take action without parsing SMTP status codes.

Troubleshooting

1. No events appearing in Webhookify after sending emails: Verify the Event Webhook is enabled in SendGrid settings. Navigate to Settings > Event Webhooks and confirm the toggle is set to "Enabled" and your Webhookify URL is correctly entered. Also check that you have selected at least one event type.

2. Events are delayed by several minutes: SendGrid batches webhook events for efficiency. While most events arrive within seconds, batching can occasionally introduce delays of up to a few minutes during high-volume periods. This is normal SendGrid behavior and not a Webhookify issue.

3. Open events are not being tracked: Open tracking requires a tracking pixel, which only works in HTML emails. If you are sending plain text emails, open events will not be generated. Enable open tracking in SendGrid under Settings > Tracking > Open Tracking.

4. Click events show unexpected URLs: SendGrid wraps your links with tracking URLs by default. The webhook payload will show the original destination URL in the url field. If click tracking is disabled, click events will not be generated at all.

5. Spam report notifications are not appearing: Spam reports depend on feedback loops (FBLs) with ISPs. Not all email providers participate in feedback loops, so you may not receive spam reports for all recipients. Gmail, for example, does not send FBL data to SendGrid for individual messages.

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