Waitlister Platform Help

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

1. What are you trying to do?
   - A) Pick a tier — Free (100 subs) vs Launch $15/mo (unlimited subs, referrals + broadcasts) vs Growth $49/mo (API + webhooks) vs Business $129/mo
   - B) Build the waitlist — hosted landing page vs embedded form vs custom form via API
   - C) Set up referrals — points, leaderboard, position inflation, milestones
   - D) Wire data out — webhooks, REST API, Klaviyo/Mailchimp/Kit connectors, CSV
   - E) Email the list — welcome emails, broadcasts, send caps, double opt-in
   - F) Fight referral fraud — built-in detection, API fraud params
   - G) Compare Waitlister vs LaunchList / KickoffLabs / GetWaitlist / Prefinery / Viral Loops

2. Where will signups happen? Hosted page / embed on your site (which builder?) / your own backend via API — drives install path and whether fraud params matter.

3. Where must the data end up? Stays in Waitlister / ESP (which?) / CRM / warehouse — drives whether you need Growth ($49) for API/webhooks/connectors.

Skip-ahead rule: if the user's prompt already contains enough context, skip to Step 2.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the question is Waitlister-specific, continue to Step 3.

Step 3 — Waitlister platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full reference — capabilities tagged by automation surface, pricing and plan gates, integrations, subscriber data model, quick-start recipes (server-side signup with fraud params, signed webhook handler, reward fulfillment via points API), integration patterns, and the comparison grid.

Read references/waitlister-api-reference.md for the API — base URL https://waitlister.me/api/v1, X-Api-Key auth, 5 endpoints with verbatim request/response JSON, page/limit pagination (max 100), per-plan rate limits (60/120 RPM), and all five webhook event payloads verbatim with the HMAC SHA-256 verification scheme.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section. Don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Focus on the user's specific situation:

• API, webhooks, ESP connectors, and fraud detection all unlock at Growth ($49/mo). Free and Launch are UI + CSV only. Any programmatic pipeline = Growth minimum.
• No Zapier/Make/MCP — automation means webhooks (5 signed events) or the REST API. If the user expects Zapier, KickoffLabs or UpViral have it; with Waitlister they write a small handler instead.
• Always verify X-Webhook-Signature (HMAC SHA-256 over the raw body) and dedupe on X-Waitlister-Delivery — deliveries retry and are at-least-once.
• Respond to webhooks in <15s with a 2xx — 10 consecutive failures auto-disables the webhook and it stays off until manually re-enabled.
• API signups skip fraud detection unless you forward metadata.client_ip and fingerprint — server-side integrations silently lose referral fraud protection without them.
• points on update-subscriber is absolute, not incremental — read current points, then write the new total.
• Broadcasts are capped monthly (2,500 Launch / 10K Growth / 50K Business) with no documented overage — for segmented or high-volume email, sync to Klaviyo/Mailchimp/Kit and send from there.

If you discover a gotcha, workaround, or tip not covered in references/learnings.md, append it there.

Gotchas

> Best-effort from research (2026-06-06) — review these, especially plan-gated features and pricing that may shift.

1. No Zapier, Make, or MCP server. The automation surface is webhooks + REST API only — budget a small handler if you'd normally reach for a Zap.
2. API + webhooks gated to Growth ($49/mo). Rate limits also differ by plan: 60 RPM (Growth) vs 120 RPM (Business) on subscriber endpoints; log-view gets 200/400 RPM.
3. Webhooks auto-disable after 10 consecutive failures and require manual re-enabling — a dead endpoint over a launch weekend means silently lost events. Monitor the webhook status.
4. API signups bypass referral fraud detection unless metadata.client_ip (and ideally fingerprint) are forwarded from the end user.
5. points is a write-the-total field, not an increment — concurrent bonus grants can race; serialize updates per subscriber.
6. Broadcast caps are monthly and per-plan (2,500/10K/50K); overage behavior undocumented. Referral reward customization and email segmentation are limited (AppSumo reviewer complaints) — complex reward tiers or segmented sends belong in your ESP.
7. No delete-subscriber API endpoint — GDPR erasure is a dashboard operation.
8. Double opt-in changes the API response shape — check is_pending_confirmation; pending signups that never confirm fire subscriber_pending_expired, not signup_created follow-ups.
9. Custom domains need Growth+ ($49/mo) — Launch keeps you on waitlister.me URLs (branding removed at Launch, domain not custom).

Related skills

• /sales-audience-growth — List-growth strategy (lead magnets, referrals, cross-promotion across all platforms)
• /sales-launchlist — LaunchList (one-time-pricing waitlists, form POST + webhooks, no API)
• /sales-kickofflabs — KickoffLabs (waitlists + giveaways with REST API v1+v2, fraud webhooks, Zapier)
• /sales-upviral — UpViral (viral sweepstakes/rewards, API at Business+, Zapier/Make)
• /sales-referralhero — ReferralHero (full-stack referral/affiliate, multi-level L1/2/3, REST API)
• /sales-referralkit — ReferralKit (no-code merge-tag newsletter referrals)
• /sales-klaviyo — Klaviyo platform help (native connector destination)
• /sales-mailchimp — Mailchimp platform help (native connector destination)
• /sales-kit — Kit platform help (native connector destination)
• /sales-email-marketing — Email marketing strategy (what to send once you have the list)
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code

Examples

Example 1: Tier choice for a SaaS beta launch

User says: "Launching a SaaS beta in 8 weeks. I want referral-driven signups and everything synced into Klaviyo automatically. Which Waitlister plan?"
Skill does: Recommends Growth ($49/mo) — the Klaviyo connector, webhooks, API, and fraud detection all unlock there; Launch ($15/mo) covers referrals + broadcasts but exports are CSV-only. Notes unlimited subscribers from Launch up, the 10K/mo email cap on Growth, and that yearly billing is ~2 months free. Suggests sending segmented campaigns from Klaviyo rather than Waitlister broadcasts.
Result: User picks Growth annual, connects Klaviyo, keeps Waitlister broadcasts for simple all-list updates.

Example 2: Signed webhook handler (developer)

User says: "How do I build a webhook handler for Waitlister signups that pushes them into HubSpot and credits referrers in real time?"
Skill does: Walks through Integrations → Webhooks → Manage with a secret set, then Recipe 2 from references/platform-guide.md: verify X-Webhook-Signature (HMAC SHA-256 over raw body, hmac.compare_digest), dedupe on X-Waitlister-Delivery, route waitlist.signup_created → HubSpot contact create and waitlist.referral_completed → referrer score bump, respond 2xx within 15s, and monitor for the 10-failure auto-disable.
Result: User has a verified, idempotent handler feeding HubSpot with referral attribution.

Example 3: Referral rewards aren't protected from cheaters

User says: "People are gaming our waitlist referral rewards with fake signups. We add some subscribers through our own backend too. What do we do?"
Skill does: Confirms fraud detection requires Growth+; for API-added subscribers, shows the metadata.client_ip + fingerprint params (without them API signups bypass detection entirely). Recommends double opt-in so unconfirmed referrals don't count, watching referral_completed webhooks for same-IP velocity, and fulfilling rewards from verified milestones (milestone_reached) rather than raw referral counts.
Result: User enables double opt-in + fraud params and gates rewards on verified milestones.

Troubleshooting

Webhook stopped firing mid-campaign

Symptom: Events arrived for days, then silence — no deliveries at all
Cause: The webhook auto-disabled after 10 consecutive failures (endpoint down, >15s responses, or non-2xx replies); it does not self-recover
Solution: Fix the endpoint first (respond 2xx in <15s; do slow work async), then manually re-enable under Integrations → Webhooks → Manage. Backfill the gap via GET /subscribers sorted by date. Add monitoring on the webhook's Active/Inactive/Disabled status.

Referral fraud detection isn't catching obvious fakes

Symptom: Same-IP or disposable signups counting toward rewards despite fraud detection being on
Cause: Signups came through the API without metadata.client_ip/fingerprint (detection has nothing to inspect), or plan is below Growth
Solution: Forward the real end-user IP and a browser fingerprint on every API signup. Enable double opt-in so unconfirmed emails never complete referrals. Gate reward fulfillment on milestone_reached events and spot-check top referrers via GET /subscribers?sort_by=referral_count before paying out.

Hitting 429s during bulk export

Symptom: Rate limit exceeded. 60 requests allowed per minute. while paginating subscribers
Cause: Growth plan allows 60 requests/minute on subscriber endpoints (Business: 120); pagination max is 100 per page
Solution: Request limit=100, watch X-RateLimit-Remaining, and on 429 back off exponentially (docs suggest up to 30s max across 5 attempts) or sleep until X-RateLimit-Reset. For recurring syncs, prefer webhooks (push) over polling. Business doubles the limit if exports are routinely large.

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