GoHighLevel Webhooks: Send Leads Anywhere Without Zapier

Most of the “how do I connect X to GoHighLevel” questions I get have the same answer: a webhook, and no middle tool. GoHighLevel can receive a webhook from anything that can send one, and it can send a webhook to anything with a URL — which is nearly everything. The GoHighLevel webhook features are not hidden, but they are underused, because the two directions are set up in different places and the field mapping trips people up once. This is the full picture with worked examples.

If webhooks in general are new, the explainer is five minutes well spent; and if you are wondering whether you need Zapier or Make at all, that comparison ends with “often not” for exactly this reason.

The two directions

Inbound: turning any form or app into a lead

1. Create a workflow and choose the Inbound Webhook trigger. It shows a unique URL. Copy it.
2. Send a sample payload. From the source system, submit a test (a form entry, a test order); or send one yourself from any HTTP tool. The trigger shows the received JSON.
3. Map the fields. Point first_name, email, phone, and any custom fields at the matching contact fields. Include a source or tag value so the contact carries where it came from. Email or phone is required for the contact to be created or matched.
4. Add the rest of the workflow — tag, pipeline stage, notify, text the lead — exactly as for any other trigger.
5. Send a second test and open the contact to confirm every field landed.

The WordPress form guide is this pattern with a form plugin as the sender; the same trigger accepts anything.

A sample inbound payload

{
  "first_name": "Sarah",
  "last_name": "Khan",
  "email": "sarah@example.com",
  "phone": "+447700900123",
  "service": "Boiler service",
  "postcode": "M6 5AB",
  "urgency": "This week",
  "source": "website-quote-form"
}

Flat keys, one level deep, are easiest to map. If the source sends nested data, map what you can and consider a small transformation step in the source.

Outbound: pushing contacts and events anywhere

Webhook (basic) posts the whole contact record and trigger data to your URL. No options. Fine for a receiving script you control that can pick out what it needs.

Custom Webhook (premium) is the real tool: choose GET, POST, PUT or DELETE; add headers (an API key, a bearer token, a content type); write the JSON body yourself using merge fields such as {{contact.first_name}}, {{contact.email}} and custom fields; and send it to any API that accepts a request. This is how a new lead becomes a Slack message, a job in your scheduling software, a row in an external database or a record in another CRM — without an intermediary.

A sample Custom Webhook body

{
  "name": "{{contact.first_name}} {{contact.last_name}}",
  "email": "{{contact.email}}",
  "phone": "{{contact.phone}}",
  "service": "{{contact.service}}",
  "stage": "New lead",
  "ghl_id": "{{contact.id}}"
}

Five examples that come up constantly

1. Website quote form → GoHighLevel. Inbound webhook with mapping; tag source-website; instant SMS to the lead; task for the owner. No plugin needed beyond the form’s webhook feature.
2. New hot lead → Slack channel. Trigger: tag added hot. Custom Webhook POST to a Slack incoming-webhook URL with a text body built from merge fields. (There is also a native Slack action; use whichever fits.)
3. Every new lead → Google Sheet. Use the native Google Sheets action to add a row. Reach for a Custom Webhook to a Google Apps Script only when you need logic Sheets cannot do on its own.
4. Appointment booked → job management or invoicing app. Trigger: appointment status booked. Custom Webhook POST to the app’s API with the customer, service and time. Most trade and clinic software has an API that accepts this.
5. External system → update an existing contact. Inbound webhook with the email or phone as the match key and the changed fields mapped; the workflow updates rather than duplicates. Add a condition so it does not re-run welcome messages for existing contacts.

Testing without guessing

• Capture first. Point an outbound webhook at a request-capture tool (webhook.site or similar) to see exactly what GoHighLevel sends before pointing it at the real system.
• Sample payloads on the inbound side: send the real thing from the real source, not a hand-written guess.
• Workflow execution logs show each step’s status and, for Custom Webhooks, the response code. A 4xx is your request; a 5xx is their server.
• Test contacts tagged test, and a filter at the top of live workflows that skips them.

Security and reliability

When you still need Zapier or Make

• The other system has no API or webhook, only a Zapier or Make app.
• You need to transform data in ways merge fields cannot — look-ups, calculations, splitting arrays.
• Multi-step logic across several external systems with branching.
• You need the response from an external call to drive the next step in complex ways.

For everything else — which is most small-business integrations — the two GoHighLevel webhook features and the native actions inside workflows are enough, cheaper, and one fewer thing to break.

Further reading: GoHighLevel Help Center · webhook.site (request capture).

FAQ

Have a system that needs to talk to GoHighLevel and no appetite for the mapping? See the integration services — most connections are a half-day job, tested end to end, with monitoring so you hear about failures before customers do.