Skip to main content
The Hive Inspect API is a work in progress. It is available to a small group of accounts today, and the release for everyone is coming very soon. To ask for early access, message us from the chat bubble in your dashboard.
Every successful request counts toward your company’s monthly quota. A well-built integration needs only a few requests a day, even for a busy company, because Hive tells it about changes and every response carries everything it needs.

​
1. Let Hive tell you about changes

Checking the API on a timer to see whether something changed uses requests even when nothing did. Webhooks send you a message the moment something changes, and webhook messages do not count toward your quota. Each message carries the full record: the inspection with its clients and agents (names, emails, phones), price and payment status, and its reports and agreements where relevant. You usually do not need a request afterwards. See Events and payloads.

​
2. Use what list responses already include

A list returns the same fields as the single-record endpoint. Each inspection in GET /v1/inspections already includes its contacts (id, role, name, email, phone and agency), inspectors, services, price and payment, agreements and reports.
Do not list records and then fetch each one again with GET /v1/inspections/{id} or GET /v1/contacts/{id}. The list already has the same data.

​
3. Fetch many records in one request

  • Use the largest page. Send limit=200. The default is 50, and a smaller page means more requests for the same data.
  • Fetch by id in batches. Contacts, agencies and inspections accept ids with up to 200 ids separated by commas. One request replaces up to 200 single-record requests. See Fetch several records by id.

​
4. Sync only what changed

Store the time of your last sync and send it as updated_since. Only records created or changed since then come back, so an ordinary day is one or two pages. See Sync only what changed.

​
5. Keep a local copy for lookups

If your system matches records by email or name, download your contacts once (GET /v1/contacts?limit=200, following next_cursor) and keep the copy current with the contact webhooks. Then look up emails in your own copy. Looking up one email per request, again and again, uses your quota quickly.

​
6. When you must poll, poll less

Some systems cannot receive webhooks. If yours cannot:
  • Ask one filtered question instead of many. For example, inspections ready for a review: GET /v1/inspections?status=confirmed&paid=true&agreements_signed=true&published=true&scheduled_after=…&limit=200.
  • Add updated_since so each check returns only changes.
  • Check every 15 to 60 minutes, not every minute. Most data in an inspection business changes a few times a day.

​
7. Watch your usage

Every response to a request with a valid key includes Hive-Quota-Used, Hive-Quota-Remaining and Hive-Quota-Next-Reset-Date. Your company’s usage this month is also on Business Tools → API Access. If the numbers climb faster than you expect, look for a loop that requests the same records again and again.

​
Example: keep a CRM in sync and send review requests

1

Once: load what you have

Download your contacts and recent inspections with limit=200. For about 3,000 contacts that is 15 requests.
2

Once: subscribe

Add a webhook endpoint for contact.created, contact.updated, contact.deleted and inspection.completed.
3

Every day: react to messages

Update your copy from each contact message. When inspection.completed arrives, send the review request to the clients and agents in the message. No request to the API is needed.
4

Once a day: catch anything missed

Run GET /v1/contacts?updated_since=…&limit=200 and GET /v1/inspections?updated_since=…&limit=200 with yesterday’s time. That is usually 2 requests.
This setup typically uses a few requests a day, far inside the monthly quota.

​
Quick reference

Last modified on October 29, 2026