Drip User Management API Guide

Auth method: HTTP Basic Auth using API token as username, empty password; or Bearer token via OAuth 2.0 for third-party apps

Setup steps

1. Log in to Drip and navigate to Settings > User Settings > API.
2. Copy your personal API token.
3. For Basic Auth: Base64-encode ':' and pass as Authorization: Basic .
4. For OAuth 2.0 (third-party integrations): Register an OAuth application at developer.drip.com, obtain client_id and client_secret, redirect users through the authorization flow to obtain an access token.
5. Include the account_id (found in Settings > General) in all resource URLs.

Required scopes

List subscribers

• Method: GET
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers
• Watch out for: Returns up to 1,000 per page. Deleted/unsubscribed records are included unless filtered with status param.

Request example

GET /v2/9999999/subscribers?page=1&per_page=100
Authorization: Basic <base64(api_token:)>

Response example

{
  "subscribers": [{"id":"abc123","email":"user@example.com","status":"active"}],
  "meta": {"page":1,"count":1,"total_pages":1,"total_count":1}
}

Fetch a subscriber

• Method: GET
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers/{subscriber_id_or_email}
• Watch out for: Email must be URL-encoded when used as path parameter.

Request example

GET /v2/9999999/subscribers/user%40example.com
Authorization: Basic <base64(api_token:)>

Response example

{
  "subscribers": [{
    "id": "abc123",
    "email": "user@example.com",
    "status": "active",
    "tags": ["customer"]
  }]
}

Create or update a subscriber (upsert)

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers
• Watch out for: This endpoint upserts by email. Existing subscribers are updated, not duplicated. Returns 201 on create, 200 on update.

Request example

POST /v2/9999999/subscribers
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "subscribers": [{
    "email": "user@example.com",
    "first_name": "Jane",
    "tags": ["lead"]
  }]
}

Response example

{
  "subscribers": [{
    "id": "abc123",
    "email": "user@example.com",
    "status": "active"
  }]
}

Batch create or update subscribers

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers/batches
• Watch out for: Max 1,000 subscribers per batch. Response is 201 with no body - errors are not surfaced per-record synchronously.

Request example

POST /v2/9999999/subscribers/batches
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "batches": [{
    "subscribers": [
      {"email":"a@example.com","tags":["vip"]},
      {"email":"b@example.com"}
    ]
  }]
}

Response example

HTTP 201 No Content

Update a subscriber

• Method: PUT
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers/{subscriber_id}
• Watch out for: custom_fields are merged, not replaced. To clear a field, pass null as the value.

Request example

PUT /v2/9999999/subscribers/abc123
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "subscribers": [{"email":"user@example.com","custom_fields":{"plan":"pro"}}]
}

Response example

{
  "subscribers": [{"id":"abc123","email":"user@example.com","status":"active"}]
}

Unsubscribe a subscriber

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers/{subscriber_id}/unsubscribe
• Watch out for: Unsubscribing is global across all campaigns for that account. Cannot be reversed via API - subscriber must re-opt-in.

Request example

POST /v2/9999999/subscribers/abc123/unsubscribe

Response example

{
  "subscribers": [{"id":"abc123","email":"user@example.com","status":"unsubscribed"}]
}

Delete a subscriber

• Method: DELETE
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/subscribers/{subscriber_id}
• Watch out for: Deletion is permanent and irreversible. Deleted subscribers cannot be recovered via API.

Request example

DELETE /v2/9999999/subscribers/abc123
Authorization: Basic <base64(api_token:)>

Response example

HTTP 204 No Content

Tag a subscriber

• Method: POST
• URL: https://api.getdrip.com/v2/{account_id}/tags
• Watch out for: Tags are created automatically if they don't exist. Tag names are case-sensitive.

Request example

POST /v2/9999999/tags
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "tags": [{"email":"user@example.com","tag":"vip"}]
}

Response example

HTTP 201 No Content

• Rate limits: Drip enforces rate limits per API token. The documented limit is 3,600 requests per hour (1 request/second sustained). Exceeding the limit returns HTTP 429.
• Rate-limit headers: Yes
• Retry-After header: Yes
• Rate-limit notes: Rate limit headers include X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, and X-RateLimit-Reset. Batch endpoints (e.g., batch subscriber upsert) count as a single request and support up to 1,000 records per call - use these to stay within limits.
• Pagination method: offset
• Default page size: 100
• Max page size: 1000
• Pagination pointer: page and per_page

• Webhooks available: Yes
• Webhook notes: Drip supports webhooks (called 'Notifications') that POST JSON payloads to a configured URL when subscriber events occur. Configured under Settings > Integrations > Webhooks in the Drip UI.
• Alternative event strategy: Polling the subscribers list endpoint with updated_at filter as a fallback for event detection.
• Webhook events: subscriber.created, subscriber.subscribed_to_campaign, subscriber.removed_from_campaign, subscriber.completed_campaign, subscriber.applied_tag, subscriber.removed_tag, subscriber.updated_custom_field, subscriber.unsubscribed_globally, subscriber.unsubscribed_from_campaign, subscriber.bounced, subscriber.marked_as_spam, subscriber.became_lead, subscriber.became_customer, email.sent, email.opened, email.clicked, order.placed, order.paid, order.refunded

• SCIM available: No
• SCIM version: Not documented
• Plan required: N/A
• Endpoint: Not documented

Limitations:

• Drip does not offer a SCIM API. User/subscriber management is handled exclusively through the REST API.
• No SSO or IdP integration (Okta, Entra, etc.) is documented.

Three integration patterns cover the majority of production use cases.

Bulk import and tag: Chunk records into batches of up to 1,000 and POST to /subscribers/batches. The endpoint returns HTTP 201 with no body - per-record errors are not surfaced synchronously. Always verify a sample by GETting /subscribers?tags[]=imported after each batch and resubmit failures as individual POSTs for error diagnosis.

Subscriber attribute sync from external system: On a lifecycle event such as a plan upgrade, PUT /subscribers/{subscriber_id} with updated custom_fields and a tags payload. Include remove_tags in the same request to atomically swap tags. Note that custom_fields are merged, not replaced - pass null explicitly to clear a field value.

Unsubscribe event propagation to CRM: Configure a webhook under Settings > Integrations > Webhooks targeting your endpoint and subscribe to subscriber.unsubscribed_globally. Extract the subscriber email from the payload and update CRM opt-out status. Respond with HTTP 200 within 10 seconds and implement idempotency on the event id field, as Drip will retry on non-2xx responses.

Bulk import and tag new subscribers

1. Chunk subscriber list into batches of up to 1,000 records.
2. POST each batch to /v2/{account_id}/subscribers/batches with email, name, custom_fields, and tags in the payload.
3. Receive HTTP 201; wait briefly then GET /v2/{account_id}/subscribers?tags[]=imported to verify records were created.
4. Handle any missing records by re-submitting individual POSTs to /v2/{account_id}/subscribers for error diagnosis.

Watch out for: Batch endpoint does not return per-record errors. Always verify a sample of records after batch import.

Sync subscriber status changes (e.g., plan upgrade) from external system

1. On plan upgrade event in external system, PUT /v2/{account_id}/subscribers/{subscriber_id} with updated custom_fields (e.g., {"plan": "pro"}) and new tags (e.g., ["pro-customer"]).
2. Include remove_tags in the same payload to remove old plan tags (e.g., ["free-customer"]).
3. Confirm response contains updated custom_fields and tag list.

Watch out for: custom_fields are merged not replaced; explicitly pass null to clear a field value.

Listen for unsubscribe events and update external CRM

1. Configure a webhook in Drip Settings > Integrations > Webhooks pointing to your endpoint.
2. Subscribe to the subscriber.unsubscribed_globally event.
3. On receipt of webhook payload, extract subscriber email and update CRM opt-out status.
4. Respond with HTTP 200 within 10 seconds to acknowledge receipt.

Watch out for: Drip may retry webhook delivery on non-2xx responses. Implement idempotency using the event's id field to avoid duplicate CRM updates.

The primary API trap is the batch endpoint's silent failure mode: POST /subscribers/batches always returns HTTP 201 with an empty body regardless of per-record outcomes. Teams that treat the 201 as confirmation of successful writes will silently drop records.

A secondary trap is the upsert behavior of the single-subscriber POST - it matches on email and updates the existing record rather than creating a duplicate, which will overwrite fields if the payload is not scoped carefully. Deletion is permanent and irreversible with no soft-delete or recovery endpoint.

Finally, the API token auth uses Basic Auth with an empty password string rather than a Bearer token, which is a common misconfiguration point when integrating with HTTP client libraries that default to Bearer schemes.