SendGrid Event Webhook not firing: the receiver checklist

TL;DR

Set the exact HTTPS URL with no redirect in front of it. The webhook is not enabled or points at the wrong URL in Settings > Mail Settings > Event Notification.

Steps

1. Symptom: mail sends succeed (202s) but your endpoint sees nothing.
2. Cause candidates:
3. The webhook is not enabled or points at the wrong URL in Settings > Mail Settings > Event Notification.
4. Your endpoint does not return 2xx quickly, so SendGrid treats the POST as failed.
5. A firewall, auth gate, or redirect in front of the endpoint eats the POST. (The inbound parse doc explicitly warns webhooks do not follow redirects; the same discipline applies.)
6. You are testing with sandbox mode, which fires no events by design.
7. Confirmation: use the console's webhook test feature to fire a sample POST, and watch your server logs for the incoming request.
8. Fix:
9. Set the exact HTTPS URL with no redirect in front of it.
10. Return 2xx immediately and process asynchronously. Slow handlers cause retries and gaps.
11. If you enabled signed webhooks, make sure verification failures are not silently dropping real events; log them.
12. Verification: the test POST arrives, then live processed/delivered events stream in within seconds of sending.

When to use

You are seeing this: Symptom: mail sends succeed (202s) but your endpoint sees nothing. Use this skill when you run into "SendGrid Event Webhook not firing: the receiver checklist".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

The Event Webhook posts event batches to the configured URL; the security doc notes the signature and timestamp headers on each POST. The bounces doc shows the console path for mail settings. A webhook that never fires is almost always a receiver-side or settings problem. Sources: https://github.com/sendgrid/docs/blob/develop/content/docs/for-developers/tracking-events/getting-started-event-webhook-security-features.md | https://docs.sendgrid.com/for-developers/tracking-events/event | https://docs.sendgrid.com/ui/sending-email/bounces