What is Relae?

Relae is a webhook relay service that sits between your vendors (like Stripe, Shopify, GitHub) and your application, ensuring reliable webhook delivery with automatic retries, monitoring, and security features.

The Problem Relae Solves

Webhooks Are Critical But Unreliable

Modern applications rely on webhooks for real-time updates:

• Payment confirmations from Stripe
• Order updates from Shopify
• Code push notifications from GitHub
• Shipping updates from logistics providers

But webhooks have several inherent problems:

1. Lost Events

If your server is down during maintenance or experiencing issues, webhooks are simply lost. Most vendors don't retry or have very limited retry logic.

2. No Visibility

When webhooks fail, you often don't know why. Was it a network issue? Did your server timeout? Was the payload malformed?

3. Difficult to Debug

Webhook failures happen at the worst times (deployments, server restarts, traffic spikes) and are hard to reproduce.

4. Security Concerns

Verifying webhook signatures is complex and easy to get wrong, leaving your application vulnerable to attacks.

5. Operational Overhead

You need to:

• Monitor webhook endpoints
• Implement retry logic
• Log all webhook events
• Handle signature verification
• Track failure rates

How Relae Works

Relae acts as a reliable intermediary that handles all of this for you:

Step-by-Step Process

1. Vendor Sends Webhook

   • Your vendor (e.g., Stripe) sends a webhook to your unique Relae endpoint
   • Example: https://api.relaehook.com/webhook/abc123...

2. Relae Receives & Validates

   • Relae receives the webhook immediately
   • If you provided a vendor webhook secret, Relae verifies the signature
   • Invalid signatures are rejected (event still stored for debugging)

3. Event Storage

   • Every webhook is stored in our database
   • Retention period based on your tier (7-30+ days)
   • Full payload, headers, and metadata preserved

4. Forward to Your Application

   • Relae forwards the webhook to your configured destination URL
   • Adds Relae-specific headers:
     • X-Relae-Event-ID: Unique event identifier
     • X-Relae-Source: The vendor name (e.g., stripe)
     • X-Relae-Timestamp: Unix timestamp
     • X-Relae-Signature: HMAC-SHA256 signature for verification
     • User-Agent: Relae-Webhook-Forwarder/1.0
   • Includes any custom headers you configured
   • Signs the outgoing webhook with HMAC-SHA2565. Automatic Retry on Failure
   • If your app returns an error (5xx) or times out
   • Relae automatically retries up to 5 times
   • Uses exponential backoff (5s, 25s, 125s, 625s, 3125s)

5. Dead Letter Queue

   • After 5 failed attempts, event moves to DLQ
   • You can review, debug, and manually retry anytime
   • Never lose a webhook event

Key Features Explained

🔄 Automatic Retries

Most webhook providers either don't retry at all or have very limited retry logic. Relae retries intelligently:

Attempt	Delay	Total Wait Time
1st	Immediate	0s
2nd	5 seconds	5s
3rd	25 seconds	30s
4th	125 seconds	155s (~2.5 min)
5th	625 seconds	780s (~13 min)

This gives your application plenty of time to recover from:

• Brief outages
• Deployments
• Database connection issues
• Temporary overload

📬 Dead Letter Queue (DLQ)

The DLQ is where events go after exhausting all retries. From the DLQ, you can:

• Review the full payload and headers
• Debug why delivery failed
• Manually retry individual events
• Bulk retry multiple events
• See failure history with timestamps

This means you'll never lose critical webhook data.

🔐 Security Features

Incoming Webhook Verification

• Relae verifies signatures from your vendor using their signing secret
• Invalid signatures are rejected before reaching your app
• Supports HMAC-SHA256, HMAC-SHA1, and other common methods

Outgoing Webhook Signing

• Every forwarded webhook is signed with HMAC-SHA256
• Uses a unique endpoint token per destination
• Prevents tampering and replay attacks
• Learn how to verify signatures →

Endpoint Isolation

• Each destination gets a unique endpoint URL
• If one endpoint is compromised, others remain secure
• Rotate endpoints anytime without affecting other integrations

📊 Monitoring & Analytics

Track your webhook health with:

• Success/failure rates over time
• Response time metrics from your application
• Event volume charts by day/hour
• Source breakdown (which vendors send most events)
• Failed event analysis (common failure reasons)

Available on Scale tier and above.

⚡ Performance

Relae is built for speed:

• Sub-100ms processing for most webhooks
• Concurrent delivery to multiple destinations
• Global infrastructure for low latency worldwide
• 99.9% uptime SLA (Enterprise tier)

Architecture

High-Level Overview

Components

1. API Gateway: Handles incoming webhook requests
2. Webhook Receiver: Fast webhook ingestion and validation
3. Validation Service: Verifies vendor signatures
4. Storage Service: Persists events to database
5. Delivery Service: Forwards webhooks to destinations
6. Retry Queue: Manages automatic retry logic
7. Dead Letter Queue: Stores permanently failed events

Database Schema

Events are stored with:

• Unique ID
• Account ID (your account)
• Source (vendor name)
• Destination configuration
• Full payload (JSON)
• All headers
• Timestamps (received, forwarded, retried)
• Status (pending, delivered, failed)
• Retry count
• Failed reason (if applicable)

Use Cases

E-commerce Platforms

• Process Stripe payment webhooks
• Handle Shopify order updates
• Track shipping notifications
• Manage inventory updates

SaaS Applications

• User signup events from authentication providers
• Subscription changes from billing systems
• Support ticket updates from help desk tools
• Monitoring alerts from infrastructure tools

Development Teams

• GitHub push/PR webhooks for CI/CD
• Deployment notifications
• Error tracking from monitoring services
• Security alerts from scanning tools

Financial Applications

• Payment confirmations
• Transaction updates
• Account balance changes
• Fraud detection alerts

Comparison to Alternatives

vs. Direct Vendor Integration

Feature	Direct	Relae
Setup complexity	Medium	Easy
Retry logic	Limited/None	Intelligent
Failure visibility	Poor	Excellent
Dead letter queue	Manual	Built-in
Multi-vendor support	Individual setup	Unified
Signature verification	DIY	Handled

vs. Building Your Own

Feature	DIY Solution	Relae
Development time	Weeks	Minutes
Maintenance	Ongoing	None
Monitoring	Custom	Built-in
Scalability	Your responsibility	Handled
Cost	Engineer time	$0-65/mo
Reliability	Depends on you	99.9%

vs. Message Queues (RabbitMQ, SQS)

Message queues are great for internal events but aren't designed for webhooks:

Feature	Message Queue	Relae
Webhook ingestion	No	Yes
Signature verification	No	Yes
Retry logic	Basic	Intelligent
Dead letter queue	Yes	Yes with UI
Analytics	Limited	Comprehensive
Setup for webhooks	Complex	Simple

Pricing & Tiers

Tier	Price	Events/mo	Retention	Analytics
Builder	$0	10,000	7 days	❌
Launch	$35	100,000	14 days	❌
Scale	$65	500,000	30 days	✅
Enterprise	Custom	Unlimited	Custom	✅

All tiers include:

• Automatic retries
• Dead letter queue
• HMAC signature verification
• Unlimited destinations
• Email support

View detailed pricing →

Limitations

To set proper expectations:

Rate Limits

• Free tier: 10,000 events/month
• Webhook size: Max 5MB per webhook
• Timeout: 30 seconds for destination response

Retry Policy

• Maximum 5 retry attempts per event
• Total retry window: ~13 minutes
• After that, event moves to DLQ

Data Retention

• Events auto-delete after retention period
• Upgrade tier for longer retention
• Export events before they expire

Supported Signatures

Currently supports:

• HMAC-SHA256 (most common)
• HMAC-SHA1 (legacy)
• Custom header signatures

Security & Compliance

Data Security

• All data encrypted at rest (AES-256)
• All connections use TLS 1.2+

Privacy

• We only store webhook payloads during retention period
• No sharing of customer data

Getting Started

Ready to use Relae?

1. Sign up for a free account →
2. Follow the quick start guide →
3. Configure your first destination →