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Stripe fires the event immediately, but Zapier processes it 15, 30, or 60 seconds later. Your downstream workflow is slow and customers notice. Here's what's actually causing the lag.
Not all Zapier Stripe triggers are instant. Some older Stripe triggers use polling — Zapier checks Stripe every 5–15 minutes for new events. Check your trigger setup: if it says 'polling' in the trigger details, switch to a Stripe webhook-based instant trigger or use Zapier's Webhooks by Zapier as the trigger with a Stripe webhook pointed at it.
On free or Starter plans, Zapier limits concurrent task execution. During high-volume events (sales, launches), tasks queue and run sequentially. Upgrade your plan or reduce task volume per Zap to reduce queue wait time.
If your Zapier webhook endpoint previously returned a non-200 response, Stripe pauses and retries on a delay. Stripe's retry schedule: immediately, then 5 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 2 hours, etc. Check your Stripe webhook log for retry indicators — if you see retries, fix the endpoint response first.
Stripe sends webhooks from their own infrastructure to Zapier's servers. Occasionally this path has routing delays outside both parties' control. These are usually transient and resolve within minutes. If delay is consistent (not occasional), it's likely one of the other causes.
If the Zap has multiple steps (lookup, transform, send email, update CRM), the total run time compounds. A 2-second delay per step across 5 steps = 10 seconds of processing before the final action fires. Profile each step's run time in Zapier task history and optimize the slowest steps.
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