---
title: "Smart Retry with Exponential Backoff"
description: "Failed deliveries retry automatically with exponential backoff; 4xx failures are classified as permanent."
url: "https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/smart-retry/"
---

[WP Webhooks](https://wpwebhooks.org/) / [Docs](https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/) / Smart Retry with Exponential Backoff

Feature since v1.1.0

# Smart Retry with Exponential Backoff

Failed deliveries retry automatically with exponential backoff; 4xx failures are classified as permanent.

5xx and 429 responses trigger retries with exponential backoff (default: 5 attempts, delays of ~30s, 60s, 120s, 240s, 480s capped at 1 hour). 4xx and 3xx responses are classified as `permanently_failed` immediately — bad payloads are not worth retrying. Each attempt is logged with its HTTP status and response body.

## Configurable via filters

Override max attempts per webhook via `fswa_max_attempts` and delay per attempt via `fswa_backoff_delay`. Pro adds per-webhook retry settings and choice of exponential, linear, or fixed backoff strategy — configurable from the webhook edit screen.

/ Related

[fswa\_max\_attempts](https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/fswa-max-attempts/)[fswa\_backoff\_delay](https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/fswa-backoff-delay/)[Per-Webhook Retry Settings](https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/per-webhook-retry/)[Per-Webhook Backoff Strategy](https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/per-webhook-backoff/)[Delivery Logs](https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/delivery-logs/)

/Ready

## Your next automation is  
one sentence away.

[Install Plugin→](https://wordpress.org/plugins/flowsystems-webhook-actions/) [See the Plugin →](https://wpwebhooks.org/wordpress-webhook-plugin/)

$ wp plugin install flowsystems-webhook-actions --activate

## Structured data

```json
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","name":"Smart Retry with Exponential Backoff — Feature — Webhook Actions Docs","description":"Failed deliveries retry automatically with exponential backoff; 4xx failures are classified as permanent.","url":"https://wpwebhooks.org/docs/smart-retry/","isPartOf":{"@type":"WebSite","name":"WP Webhooks","url":"https://wpwebhooks.org"},"about":{"@type":"SoftwareApplication","name":"Webhook Actions","applicationCategory":"WordPress Plugin"}}
```