Pull Data From Any API on Your Schedule
Not every service offers webhooks. CronJobPro polls APIs on your defined schedule, forwarding fresh data to your endpoints so your systems always have the latest information without building custom polling infrastructure.
Building Polling Infrastructure Is a Time Sink
When third-party APIs lack webhooks, you are forced to build and maintain polling workers. These require servers, job queues, error handling, and monitoring — all for something that should be simple.
- ✗Running a dedicated server just to poll an API every few minutes is wasteful and expensive
- ✗Self-built polling scripts lack retry logic and silently stop working after server reboots
- ✗Rate-limiting issues cause your polling to get blocked without any notification
- ✗No centralized view of which APIs are being polled, how often, and whether they are responding
Managed API Polling Without Infrastructure Overhead
Replace your custom polling scripts with CronJobPro cron jobs. Each job hits your target API on schedule and forwards the data to your processing endpoint. Built-in retries, logging, and alerts handle everything else.
REST API
Programmatically create, update, and manage polling jobs through the CronJobPro API — perfect for dynamically adding new data sources.
Automatic Retries
When an API returns a rate-limit error or temporary failure, exponential backoff retries ensure you get the data without hammering the endpoint.
Real-Time Monitoring
Track the success rate, response time, and data freshness of every polled API from a single dashboard.
How to Set It Up
- 1
Identify the API endpoints you need to poll
List the external APIs that lack webhooks — weather data, social media stats, stock prices, or partner inventory feeds.
- 2
Create a receiver endpoint in your application
Build an endpoint that accepts the polled data and processes it — inserting into your database, updating a cache, or triggering downstream actions.
- 3
Set up cron jobs with appropriate intervals
Match polling frequency to data freshness needs. Real-time data might need per-minute polling, while daily reports need a single daily fetch.
- 4
Monitor response patterns and adjust
Use execution logs to spot rate-limiting, slow responses, or data format changes. Adjust intervals and retry settings accordingly.
Recommended Schedules
| Expression | Schedule |
|---|---|
| */2 * * * * | Poll real-time data every 2 minutes |
| */15 * * * * | Fetch updated data every 15 minutes |
| 0 * * * * | Hourly data sync for standard feeds |
Start Automating Now
Set up api polling & scheduled requests in under 2 minutes. Free forever for up to 5 jobs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between API polling and webhooks?
Polling actively requests data on a schedule (pull model), while webhooks push data to your endpoint when events occur. Polling is necessary when the source API does not support webhooks.
How do I avoid hitting API rate limits with polling?
CronJobPro's exponential backoff automatically slows down when rate-limit errors are detected. You can also space out polling intervals to stay well within limits.
Can I poll APIs that require OAuth authentication?
Yes. You can include custom headers with Bearer tokens, API keys, or any authentication mechanism your target API requires.
How do I handle APIs that return paginated results?
Build your receiver endpoint to handle pagination logic. CronJobPro triggers the initial request, and your endpoint can make follow-up requests to fetch additional pages.
Related Use Cases
Data Synchronization Between Systems
When data lives in multiple systems, inconsistencies are inevitable without automation. CronJobPro triggers your sync endpoints on schedule, ensuring your CRM, database, warehouse, and third-party tools always agree.
API Health Check Monitoring
Your application depends on APIs — yours and third-party ones. CronJobPro monitors every endpoint on a schedule, verifies response integrity, and alerts you the moment something drifts from expected behavior.
Competitor Price Monitoring
Pricing is a moving target. CronJobPro triggers your price monitoring endpoints on schedule, collecting competitor pricing data so you can adjust your strategy before you lose market share.