Using the EmailFig API

EmailFig has an API, so you can keep your contacts in sync from your own code or a tool like Zapier or Shopify, instead of importing a CSV by hand. It reads and updates your contacts, lists, tags and custom fields, and reads how your campaigns performed. The full, interactive reference lives at emailfig.com/docs, where you can run real requests against your own account once you’ve added a key.

Get an API key

1. Go to Settings → API keys.
2. Under Create an API key, give it a Name (something like “Zapier” or “Order sync”, so you know what it’s for), and click Create key.
3. Copy the key straight away. It’s shown only once. EmailFig stores only a fingerprint of it, so if you lose it, revoke that key and create a new one.

Give each integration its own key. Then if you ever need to turn one off, you can Revoke just that key without breaking anything else.

Use it in a request

Send your key in the Authorization header as a bearer token:

Authorization: Bearer emf_live_your_key_here

Each key can make up to 300 requests every five minutes. Go over and you get a 429 with a Retry-After header telling you how many seconds to wait — most tools, Zapier and Make included, read that and reschedule on their own.

When something goes wrong

Errors come back in a standard format with a stable code in them, so your integration can tell “this address unsubscribed” from “this list needs a confirmation email you can’t send yet” without reading the English. Every code, what causes it and what to do about it is listed at emailfig.com/docs/errors.

What you can do

• Contacts: add and update people. Adding matches on the email address, so calling it again just updates the person who’s already there.
• Lists: read them, and add or remove a contact one list at a time. If a list is set to double opt-in, adding someone sends them a confirmation email and they don’t join until they click it — so the response won’t list that list against them yet. Their own subscribed status doesn’t change: the confirmation is for the new list, not for their subscription to you.
• Custom fields: read them, and create them, change their label or type, or delete them. Fields belong to your account rather than to one list, so every list collects the same set. You need to define a field before you can set a value for it on a contact, so an integration that collects something of its own can set that up itself. A field’s key is fixed once created — it’s where every stored value lives.
• Tags: read them, and tag a contact. Tagging creates the tag if it doesn’t exist yet.
• Campaigns: read what you’ve sent and how it did. Read-only.

The API reference lists every endpoint, its exact fields and responses, and lets you try any of them live.

Where to go next

• The full API reference
• Contacts, lists and tags: how they fit together
• Import contacts from a CSV, the manual alternative

Stuck on something? Email support@emailfig.com and a real person will help.