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API onboarding for delivery
How to onboard with the Porterchain API: authentication, order and stop payloads, and going live. For merchants ready to automate.
When you’re ready to send orders programmatically, we offer an API for creating and managing stops and runs. You authenticate, post your payload, and we confirm and run the route. This page explains what’s involved in API onboarding so you can plan integration and go live with confidence.
When to use API
API is ideal when you have a system that already holds orders (e.g. e‑commerce, ERP, or internal tools) and you want to push delivery data to us without manual export or CSV. It’s also useful for same-day or high-frequency runs where manual uploads don’t scale. If you’re starting out, CSV is often faster to get live; you can add API when your volume or workflow demands it.
What we provide
We give you API documentation, authentication (e.g. API key or OAuth, depending on our current offering), and endpoints for creating stops and runs. You’ll send the same data you’d put in a CSV: address, contact, time window, reference. We’ll confirm the exact schema and any webhooks or callbacks (e.g. delivery status) so your system stays in sync. Integration support is part of onboarding so you’re not on your own.
Going live
We’ll work with you through a test or staging phase so you can validate payloads and responses before going live. Once we’re both confident, you switch to production and start sending real runs. We’ll monitor the first few runs and help with any issues. Same tracking and visibility as CSV — just automated submission.