Woodpecker API review

Woodpecker API pricing, plan by plan

Woodpecker API pricing is a single $20 a month add-on that bundles the API, webhooks, the MCP server, the CLI and the integrations, on top of a plan priced on one meter, emails sent a month.

Those rows come from woodpecker.co/pricing.md, which Woodpecker updated on 22 October 2026. Every email sent counts toward the tier, follow-ups included. The add-ons are listed there too: LinkedIn automation at $29 a connected account a month, mailboxes at $4 to $6 each, extra warm-ups at $5, the Agency Panel at $27 per active client and white label at $5. The trial is 14 days or 100 sent emails, whichever comes first, with no card.

One request at a time

Woodpecker API rate limits are a queue rather than a rate: one request is processed at a time, up to six more can wait, and each waits at most 15 seconds before it is dropped. Anything beyond the queue gets a 429 straight away.

The limit is unusual and also honest. It caps concurrency rather than volume, so a backfill is slow but never blocked by a monthly ceiling, and because it is counted per account, every agency client account is its own lane.

How to create a Woodpecker API key

A Woodpecker API key is created in the app under Add-ons, then API & Integrations, then API keys, once the add-on is active or during the trial. Keys are user-specific, so each user only sees their own, and each one can carry a label naming the integration it serves.

The split mirrors the limits. A script uses a labeled key and runs serially against the queue, and an agent uses the hosted MCP server with a sign-in, so nobody has to paste a key into a chat window.

A minimal call

Woodpecker's own authentication page gives the first request to make: the account behind the key. It needs the header and nothing else.

curl --request GET \
  --url "https://api.woodpecker.co/rest/v1/me" \
  --header "x-api-key: {YOUR_API_KEY}"

Where the Woodpecker API documentation lives

The current Woodpecker API documentation is at developers.woodpecker.co. An older help-center article documents a previous API version that Woodpecker marks as deprecated, so check which one a tutorial or an inherited integration was written against.

The Agency add-on unlocks a second set of endpoints for managing client accounts, and Woodpecker publishes a CLI alongside the MCP server. The pricing.md file is worth knowing about for its own sake: it is a complete rate card in plain text, the kind of machine-readable twin Smartlead and Reply.io also publish, and the fastest way to price Woodpecker without a slider. The older pricing.txt still prints the legacy contacted-prospect card.

The MCP page lists Woodpecker's MCP access alongside the others in this directory.

Woodpecker's own walkthrough of the API

Woodpecker publishes this on its own channel, so it is Woodpecker's account of Woodpecker, not ours. It is here because a rate card cannot show you the thing moving, and a few minutes of the product is faster than any paragraph on this page at telling you whether the shape of it fits yours.

Woodpecker's own two-minute tour of its Agency API from March 2023: creating a client account, adding prospects, reading campaign data and blacklisting. It predates the current pricing, emails sent a month from $39 for 5,000, where the API is a $20 a month add-on bundled with webhooks, the MCP server and the CLI. Read it for what the API does and the pricing page for what it costs.

Published 28 March 2023 on Woodpecker.co, the channel Woodpecker's own pages link to, and read on 23 October 2026. Nothing in it is a source for a price or a limit on this page: every figure in the tables above comes from a Woodpecker page.

Strengths and limits

Woodpecker charges one flat fee for every developer tool and keeps the rest of the plan generous.

The panels add up to a slow, cheap, predictable integration. You pay $20 for everything, never worry about a monthly ceiling, and accept that the API answers one request at a time, which suits a nightly sync and frustrates a real-time one.

Who should build on Woodpecker

Woodpecker is a good target for a small team that wants every developer tool for one known price. At $39 plus $20 you get the API, webhooks, an MCP server and a CLI with unlimited mailboxes and seats. Instantly at $47 and lemlist at $55 billed annually land at a similar total, and Woodpecker is the one of the three with a CLI and webhooks in the same tick box.

Design for the queue from the start. One request at a time with six waiting is enough for syncing campaigns and prospects overnight and not enough for anything that needs bursts, so a real-time reply router should lean on webhooks rather than polling.

Before budgeting, check which card your account is on. New accounts are billed on emails sent, every follow-up counts toward the tier, and an inherited account may still be on the legacy contacted-prospect card, though the $20 add-on is the same on both.

Before you build against it

Four things to settle first, each one read off Woodpecker's own pages. The ticks are remembered in this browser, so you can come back to a half-finished integration.

If Woodpecker is not the answer

Three providers in the Sending APIs listing that solve the same problem differently. Each one is a trade, and the trade is named.

The full set, organized by the reason people leave, is on the Woodpecker alternatives page.

Woodpecker against the obvious rival

Same rate cards, read side by side, with the arithmetic done on a worked volume rather than left to you: Reply.io vs Woodpecker, Instantly vs Woodpecker and lemlist vs Woodpecker. Every pairing in the directory is on the compare hub.