# Webhook payload explainer

> Paste a webhook or API payload, get a plain-English explanation.

The webhook payload explainer reads a webhook payload or any JSON response and explains what every field means, which ones matter, and what will trip you up when you consume it.

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## What it does

A webhook arrives with no documentation attached, and working out what its fields mean usually means guessing from their names. This explains the payload instead: what the event is, what each field carries, which values are in minor units or epoch seconds, and where a null means "absent" rather than "none". You choose what you want — a summary, a field-by-field guide, the gotchas, or how to consume it — and can keep asking questions about the same payload.

## When to use it

- A webhook is arriving from a third party and you need to know what to read out of it.
- You are writing a handler and want the field meanings before you write the parsing.
- You want to know which fields are safe to depend on and which are optional.
- You have an API response and want it explained without hunting through documentation.

## What you give it

| Input | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| JSON payload | A webhook body or API response, pasted in. Validated in the browser before anything is sent, so a syntax error is reported locally with its position. |
| Lens | What you want out of it: a summary, a field guide, the gotchas, or how to consume it. |

## What you get back

| Output | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Plain-English explanation | What the payload represents and what its fields mean, formatted with tables and code where that reads better than prose. |
| Follow-up answers | Answers to further questions about the same payload, in the same conversation. |

## Key terms

- **Webhook** — an HTTP request a service sends you when something happens, rather than one you send asking. The payload is the whole message, so anything not in it requires a separate call.
- **Minor units** — money expressed as a whole number of the smallest denomination — 4250 meaning $42.50. Mistaking minor units for a decimal amount is a hundredfold error, and payment payloads use both conventions.
- **Epoch seconds** — a timestamp as the number of seconds since 1970, rather than an ISO-8601 string. A payload often carries both forms in different fields.
- **Nullable versus absent** — a null can mean "this does not apply" or "we do not know yet", and the two need different handling. A single sample cannot always tell you which, so the explanation says so rather than guessing.

## Questions

### Does it work on any JSON, or only webhooks?

Any JSON payload — a webhook body, an API response, or a fragment of one.

### What happens if my JSON is malformed?

It is caught in your browser before anything is sent, and the position of the problem is reported.

### Can it tell me which fields are optional?

It says what is not present in the sample you gave it. A single payload cannot prove a field is optional, so it does not claim otherwise.


## Privacy

Unlike the browser-only tools here, this one sends the payload you paste to an AI model to produce the explanation. Real webhook payloads often contain customer data, so redact anything sensitive first. The conversation is not saved and clears when you refresh.

## Links

- [Use the tool](https://www.postman.com/tools/webhook-payload-explainer) — the interactive version of this page.
- [Postman Tools](https://www.postman.com/tools) — every free tool in this set.
- [API response docs](https://learning.postman.com/docs/sending-requests/response-data/responses/) — Postman documentation.