First, confirm it is actually Zapier and not your store. Then contain the damage and communicate. Here is exactly how to do that during a Zapier outage, plus what usually breaks and how long incidents tend to last.
How do I confirm Zapier is actually down?
Check two independent sources before changing anything in your store. First, StatusBird's live Zapier status page, which is based on independent checks every 2 minutes. Second, Zapier's own status page at status.zapier.com. If the official page still shows green, do not assume you are wrong: vendors often acknowledge incidents well after they start. If both look clean, the problem is more likely your store's configuration or a specific integration.
What does a Zapier outage look like?
- Zaps showing delayed, held, or errored runs in Zap history
- Expected Slack messages, emails, or spreadsheet rows not appearing after new orders
- Task history not loading or the Zapier dashboard erroring
- Webhook-triggered Zaps not firing despite the source app sending events
- A backlog of queued tasks that suddenly floods through after recovery
What breaks in your store
When Zapier has an incident, Zaps stop running or run late, so every automated handoff between your tools silently stalls. Orders stop appearing in spreadsheets and Slack, new customers are not added to marketing lists, fulfillment notifications do not fire, and any business process that assumes the automation happened starts drifting out of sync. The failure is quiet: your store and the connected apps all look healthy individually, and the missing work only shows up as gaps you notice later.
For context, StatusBird's independent monitoring recorded 1 major Zapier incident in the last 90 days, with an average duration of 2 hours 22 minutes. Details are on the Zapier reliability page.
What to do during the outage
- List your business-critical Zaps and do those handoffs manually during the outage.
- Check each Zap's history after recovery and use Zapier's replay feature for failed or missed runs.
- Expect polling-based triggers to catch up on their own but verify instant webhook triggers, which can miss events.
- Warn your team that downstream data such as sheets and CRM entries is temporarily incomplete.
- Consider native integrations for revenue-critical flows so one automation vendor is not a single point of failure.
Frequently asked questions
Will my Zaps automatically catch up on what they missed?
Often, but not always. Polling triggers usually pick up records created during the outage on their next successful check, and errored runs can be replayed from Zap history. Instant webhook triggers can permanently miss events that fired while Zapier was unreachable, so audit those Zaps specifically.
How do I know which of my automations were affected?
Open Zap history and filter for errored, held, and delayed runs across the outage window, then compare against source records like your store's order list. Anything triggered by a webhook during the incident deserves a manual spot check because a missed webhook leaves no error behind.
After the outage
Once Zapier recovers, verify the affected workflows end to end rather than trusting the status page. Note the start and end times while they are fresh: if you are on a paid Zapier plan with an SLA, documented downtime is what a service credit claim is built on. See how to claim SLA credits for the process.
How this data is measured
StatusBird checks Zapier's status every 2 minutes, around the clock, independently of the vendor. The availability figure counts major and critical outages only; minor degradation is excluded so numbers are not skewed by vendors that report small blips near-continuously. Grades run from A+ to F. See the live numbers on the Zapier reliability page and current status on the Zapier status page, or browse all 84 service grades.
Know before your customers do
StatusBird monitors Zapier and 83 other services online stores depend on, plus your own storefront, every 2 minutes. When something goes down you get an SMS, email, or Slack alert with plain-English context, usually before the official status page catches up. Start monitoring free, no card required for the free plan.