Glossary Entry
What is Webhook?
Webhook without the jargon — the definition, the analogy, and why any site owner should care.
The short answer
A webhook is an API call facing the other way: the service pushes a message to your URL the moment something happens, so you never have to keep asking.
The rest of the page opens it up — the mechanics, why a site owner should care, and one concrete example of it at work.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 18 August 2026
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Register an address with the service and it posts event data to it as things happen: a payment cleared, a form arrived, a branch was pushed. Reacting to events beats asking over and over in case one has happened.
The receiving end needs manners. Your endpoint should verify the signature on every delivery, since anybody can post to a public URL, and it should answer promptly. When a delivery fails, the sending service normally tries again.
A way to picture Webhook
A buzzer at the loading door instead of walking out every ten minutes to see whether the van has arrived. Whoever turns up announces themselves, and you still read the driver's paperwork before anything is unlocked.
Any analogy flattens the detail, naturally — but this one is solid enough to think with, and thinking is what a jargon buster is for.
Why this term earns a page
Payment confirmations, deployment triggers and automation between tools are all webhook wiring in a modern stack. The moment the pattern clicks, integration documentation stops reading like ritual and starts reading like plumbing.
That, incidentally, is the bar for any technical term — not 'could I lecture on it' but 'would I recognise it as the answer to my problem'. For this one, you now would.
One worked example
Stripe posts a payment-succeeded event to a shop's endpoint. The order flips to paid and the receipt goes out seconds after the card clears, with nothing in the chain politely enquiring whether anything has happened.
Scale that example across every website online and you have described the whole job of the concept in one stroke.
Where it sits inside your own account
You will meet it in the control panel and now and then in a support thread, usually already set correctly. If this one landed, the natural follow-ups are API, Git, WooCommerce and Cron Job.
A free SSL certificate comes with every plan and reissues itself before the old one lapses — the padlock is never yours to diarise.
Unexplained jargon slows everybody down
Sooner or later every confusing hosting term turns into a support ticket, so we defined the hundred commonest ones properly — once, in the same plain English we use with customers.
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- 100+ entries, plain English all the way
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Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
The next step, drawn out
Carry on into API and Git — ideas rarely travel alone, so the neighbours are linked in.
Jargon-free by design
Definitions written for people who run sites, not for other sysadmins — translation rather than restatement.
Analogies that hold
Every concept comes with a mental model that returns exactly when you need it.
Cross-wired entries
Related terms point at each other, so one lookup compounds into working knowledge.
Stakes made explicit
More than what a thing is: the moments it turns out to be the answer to a problem you have.
Tied to real hosting
Examples name platforms you would genuinely use, never an abstract diagram on a whiteboard.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Find it in your own account
Open the control panel and find where this idea sits — a definition turns into understanding the moment it attaches to your own site.
- 2
Check the defaults as they stand
Look at how your account has it configured. Nine times in ten the default is right, and a check turns the guess into certainty.
- 3
Chase the neighbouring terms
Hosting terms travel in groups — API, Git and WooCommerce finish this one's picture, each a two-minute read away.
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Frequently Asked
The questions that come up most
Webhook or cron job — which do I want?
A webhook when something has happened and the response should be immediate. Cron when the work belongs to the calendar, such as a nightly clear-out or a weekly report. A mature system runs both, with events for moments and schedules for sweeps.
Is publishing a webhook endpoint risky?
Not when it is built properly, with HTTPS and signature verification on every incoming delivery. An endpoint that skips the check will accept a forgery from anybody who finds the URL. That single check is the difference between a doorbell and an open door.
How do payments and auto-renewal work?
You pay by credit or debit card through a secure checkout, and renewals bill at the same rate as the original order. Every invoice sits in your client area, and auto-renewal switches off with a toggle in the account — no telephone call needed.
Is the free SSL certificate genuinely free?
Entirely, on every plan. The certificate is issued as soon as the name points here and reissues itself well before it lapses. On encryption it matches any paid DV certificate — the paid options exist for wildcard coverage or organisation validation, which most sites never need.
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