Why do I need to use webhooks?

A few of the reasons why you might need to use webhooks include:

1. Avoiding Unnecessary Polling: Some products, like Transactions, are refreshed by Plaid on an ongoing basis rather than just once. Instead of repeatedly calling an endpoint like /transactions/sync on a fixed schedule to check for new data, you can listen for a webhook (e.g. SYNC_UPDATES_AVAILABLE) that tells you exactly when new data is ready to fetch.
2. Handling Asynchronous Processes: Some processes in Plaid are asynchronous and may take some time to complete. Webhooks allow Plaid to notify your application when these processes are complete and the data is ready to be accessed.
3. Error Handling: If an Item enters an error state, a webhook can be used to notify your application so that you can take appropriate action, such as prompting the user to update their credentials.
4. New Account Notifications: When Plaid detects that an existing Item has new accounts available at the institution that the user has not yet permissioned, you will receive a NEW_ACCOUNTS_AVAILABLE webhook. To actually add those accounts to the Item, the user must complete Link's update mode with Account Select.

To read a full list of webhooks that Plaid sends you for a given product, you can navigate to your chosen product in the API section of our docs and select the webhook section.