Description
Hook your WordPress and WooCommerce site to the tools your team already uses. A new order, a failed login, a plugin update or a new comment can show up in a Slack channel, a Discord server, a Telegram group, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat within seconds, or start an automation in n8n, Make or Zapier.
Most webhook plugins fire a request once and forget about it. Hookbird treats every event as a delivery that has to arrive:
- Background queue. Events are queued and sent in the background, so your pages and checkout never wait for a slow webhook.
- Automatic retries. Failed deliveries are retried with growing gaps (30 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes and so on). Rate limits and
Retry-Afterheaders are respected. - Delivery log. See every request, the payload, the response code and body, and resend any delivery with one click.
- Circuit breaker. If an endpoint keeps failing, Hookbird pauses it and emails you. Events keep queueing and are delivered once you resume it.
- Signed requests. Every request is signed with the open Standard Webhooks scheme, so receivers can verify it really came from your site.
Ready-made destinations
Pick a destination, paste the webhook URL and you are done. Messages are formatted natively for each one:
- Slack (Block Kit message)
- Discord (embed, with mentions disabled so user content cannot ping @everyone)
- Telegram (bot message)
- Microsoft Teams (Adaptive Card through a Teams workflow)
- Google Chat
- n8n, Make, Zapier and any custom URL (clean JSON)
Events
- Posts and pages: published, updated, moved to trash (any public post type)
- Users: registered, profile updated, role changed, deleted, logged in, failed login, password reset
- Comments: new comment, comment approved
- Site: plugin activated, deactivated, updated or deleted, theme switched or updated, WordPress updated
- WooCommerce: order created, paid, status changed, completed, refunded, product low in stock, product out of stock
- Custom events from your own code
Conditions
Send only what matters. Each endpoint can have conditions such as “order total is greater than 100”, “post categories contain News” or “user roles contain administrator”, matched with all or any.
Test without waiting for real traffic
“Send test event” sends realistic sample data for any event, so you can build your Slack message or your n8n workflow without placing a real order.
Built for developers and agencies
- REST API at
/wp-json/hookbird/v1/for endpoints, deliveries and tests - WP-CLI:
wp hookbird endpoints,create,test,deliveries,retry,run,status,export,import - Import and export endpoints as JSON to set up many client sites in seconds
- Send your own events with one line:
hookbird_dispatch( 'lead.created', array( 'email' => $email ) ); - Filters for payloads, request arguments, message formatting, retry schedule and more
Lightweight and private
No tracking, no ads, no account and nothing locked behind an upgrade. Hookbird only sends data to the URLs you add.
External services
Hookbird does not contact any service on its own. It sends HTTP requests only to the endpoint URLs that a site administrator adds in Hookbird, and only for the events selected for that endpoint.
Each request contains the event data described above, which, depending on the events you choose, can include names, email addresses, IP addresses, order details, comment text and post content. Requests are sent when the event happens (or when a delivery is retried or resent, or when you send a test).
Where the data goes depends on the URL you enter. If you use one of the presets, the request goes to that provider, which handles it under its own terms:
- Slack: Terms of service, Privacy policy
- Discord: Terms of service, Privacy policy
- Telegram (api.telegram.org): Terms of service, Privacy policy
- Microsoft Teams workflows (Power Automate / Azure Logic Apps): Microsoft Services Agreement, Privacy statement
- Google Chat: Terms of service, Privacy policy
- n8n Cloud: Terms, Privacy policy
- Make: Terms, Privacy policy
- Zapier: Terms, Privacy policy
Optional support form
Help & Setup has a form for asking the developer a question. Nothing is sent until you fill it in and click “Send message”. The email is sent from your site with its own mail setup (wp_mail) to the plugin developer, and contains the name, email address and question you typed, your site address, and the Hookbird, WordPress and PHP versions. The system report (versions, settings and recent errors, with no URLs, secrets or personal data) is attached only if you tick “Attach the system report”. No other service is involved.
Optional deactivation feedback
When you deactivate Hookbird, a short form asks why. Nothing is sent if you click “Skip & deactivate” or close the form. Only if you pick a reason and click “Submit & deactivate” is an email sent from your site to the plugin developer, containing the reason you chose, any text you typed, and the Hookbird, WordPress and PHP versions and site language. Your admin email address and site address are included only if you tick “You may reply to me”. The email is sent with your site’s own mail setup (wp_mail); no other service is involved.
Screenshots
Installation
- Install and activate Hookbird from Plugins, Add New, or upload the plugin folder to
/wp-content/plugins/. - Go to Hookbird in the admin menu and pick a destination, for example Slack.
- Paste the webhook URL from that service, choose your events and save.
- Click “Send test event” to check it works.
Hookbird uses WP-Cron to send deliveries in the background. On sites with very little traffic, or where WP-Cron is disabled, add a real cron job that calls wp-cron.php every minute, or run wp hookbird run.
FAQ
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Will it slow down my site?
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No. Events are stored in a queue and sent after the page has finished, in a background request. Checkout and page loads never wait for a webhook.
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What happens when Slack, Discord or my server is down?
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The delivery is retried automatically, up to 6 attempts by default spread over about 3 hours (you can allow up to 10 attempts, which spreads them over about 2 days). After too many failures in a row the endpoint is paused and you get an email. Nothing is lost: events keep queueing and are sent when you resume the endpoint.
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How do I verify that a request came from my site?
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Every request has
webhook-id,webhook-timestampandwebhook-signatureheaders following the Standard Webhooks specification. Compute an HMAC-SHA256 ofid.timestamp.bodywith the endpoint’s secret and compare. Official libraries exist for most languages, and the endpoint screen walks through the steps. -
Can I send to n8n running on my own server or on localhost?
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Yes. For safety, Hookbird blocks private network addresses and unusual ports by default. Turn on “Allow local and private network URLs” in Hookbird, Settings.
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Can I send only some orders?
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Yes. Add a condition, for example
order.total“is greater than”100, ororder.payment_method“equals”cod. -
How do I send my own events?
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Call
hookbird_dispatch( 'my_plugin.something_happened', $data );anywhere afterplugins_loaded, ordo_action( 'hookbird_dispatch', 'my_plugin.something_happened', $data );if you do not want a hard dependency. Subscribe to it in an endpoint by typing the event key under “Custom events”. Use thehookbird_eventsfilter to give it a label and a readable chat message. -
What does the JSON payload look like?
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{ “id”: “evt_…”, “event”: “order.created”, “created_at”: “2026-10-10T09:30:00+00:00”, “site”: { “name”: “…”, “url”: “…” }, “data”: { “order”: { … } } }
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Does it work with multisite?
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Yes. Each site has its own endpoints and log.
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Failed login alerts could be noisy. Is that handled?
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Yes. Failed login events are limited to 3 per IP address and 20 per site every 10 minutes, so an attack cannot flood your channel. Both limits can be changed with filters.
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Where can I get help?
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Open Hookbird, Help & Setup. It has a guide for every destination, a troubleshooting list and a system check. If you are still stuck, send a message with the form in Help & Setup, or post on the support forum and paste the system report from Help & Setup (it contains no URLs, secrets or personal data).
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“Hookbird” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “Hookbird” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- First release.