Getting Your API Key

Your API key is how we confirm that you're the one making your orders. It's what lets your application talk to Sendle for quotes, booking, and more.

Once you have your Sendle account, you can find it on the API tab of your Dashboard. With HTTP Basic Authentication, you should use your Sendle ID as the username, and your API Key as the password.

  • Here is the API tab on the live, production Sendle Dashboard. These API credentials will only work on the production server and will create actual orders that charge your credit card.
  • You can find out how to use the testing Sendle Sandbox over here. The sandbox API credentials will only work on our sandbox environment and won't create real orders or dispatch actual drivers. By default the 'try it' boxes in these docs run queries against the sandbox.

Here are the steps you'll need to go through before using the Sendle API:

  1. Get your API Key and Sendle ID.
  2. Accept the Dangerous Goods terms.
  3. Setup payments.
  4. Use the /api/ping endpoint to confirm your account is setup correctly.

We'll explain each of these on this page so you can get started.

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Anyone who has your API Key can place, cancel, and track orders with your Sendle account. You should treat your API Key like a password and keep it private!


Generate Your API Key

To generate your key:

  1. Sign into your Sendle dashboard (Live / Sandbox).
  2. Go to 'Settings'.
  3. Go to the API tab.
  4. Pop in your website and any other information (this is used for identification purposes only – it's OK to use a staging URL or another one).
  5. Press the 'Claim Access' button to display your API key and Sendle ID.

Here's what going through this process looks like:

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And here's what the dashboard looks like once you've completed this process:

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Sendle Dashboard showing the API tab


Regenerating Your API Key

When you regenerate your API key, any integrations that are setup with the old key will stop working – and you'll need to update these to use the new key instead. To regenerate your key, just click the 'Regenerate API Key' button, and then update your integrations to use the new key.


Accepting the Dangerous Goods Terms

In order to use the API, you need to accept the dangerous good terms in the dashboard. You can find it at the bottom of the Sender Details tab in your Settings.

  • Here is where the terms can be found on the live, production Sendle Dashboard.
  • Here is where the terms can be found on the testing Sandbox Dashboard.

Read through our prohibited and dangerous goods on the What can't I Sendle article (AU / CA / US / CA (fr)). You and your senders must abide by these terms. In particular, you can't send firearms/weapons with Sendle, including dummy, non-firing or museum replicas (hobby stores, keep this in mind). If you have any questions about what can or can't be sent through our network, please contact our team.

Here's what the Dangerous Terms box should look like:

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Sendle's Dangerous Goods Terms


Setup Payments

Before you can start using the API, you'll need to attach a credit card to your account for invoicing. This card will need to be in the currency you're going to be creating orders in.

Note: If you're using offline / manual billing, you'll still need to have a credit card added to your account to complete setup. After sending your Sendle account details to our team, we'll enable manual billing which will stop the credit card from being charged.

You can attach a credit card in the Billing section of the dashboard.

  • If you're creating orders in Australia, you'll need to have an AUD credit card setup.
  • If you're creating orders in Canada, you'll need a CAD credit card setup.
  • If you're creating orders in the U.S. you'll need a USD credit card setup.
  • And if you're using the Sandbox server, you'll need to use one of Stripe's test cards instead of a real credit card number.

Here's what the Billing section looks like:

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Confirming Your Setup

The ping endpoint is special – it'll always return errors if your account email address hasn't been validated, your payment settings aren't setup, or if you haven't accepted the dangerous goods terms. The other endpoints will only return these errors if that part of your account is required.

What this means is you can use this endpoint to confirm your account settings are correct! If you run into trouble using this endpoint, check out the Authentication page or the recommendations here.


Ready to Sendle 🎉

And now, you're ready to use the Sendle API!

But before jumping in you should test your queries, integration, or app with our Sandbox Server. This is a test server that you can use to create new orders, create quotes, and test out the API without creating live consignments or sending out drivers.

In the next page we'll explain our Sandbox in more detail, and how you can use it.