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Metrics type: Supporting MetricsCategory: Operational Health

At a glance

Share of EasyPost API calls that failed in the last 24 hours, across rate-shopping, label purchase and tracking requests. It is the despatch operation’s pulse: when the error rate climbs, labels stop minting and tracking stops ingesting before any delivery KPI moves. The card turns amber above 2 percent, the point at which failures stop being background noise and start delaying real parcels.

What it tracks

Grounded in the card’s detail (“API Error Rate for the selected period.”), this is failed_calls / total_calls across the EasyPost API surface (rate, shipment/label-buy and tracking endpoints) over a rolling 24H window. Failures split into two families that need different responses: client-side errors (4xx, including 401/403 auth problems and 422 validation rejections such as a bad address or missing field) and EasyPost-side or carrier-side errors (5xx and timeouts). A spike in 4xx usually means a credential or label-data problem on your side; a spike in 5xx usually means EasyPost or an underlying carrier is degraded. The alert fires above >2%, which on a busy despatch day is enough failed calls to start backing up the label queue.

Reconciling against the source

Cross-check against the EasyPost DashboardLogs, which records every API request and its HTTP status, and against EasyPost Status for platform incidents. Distinguish auth/validation errors (your side) from 5xx/timeouts (EasyPost or the underlying carrier). Note the dashboard timestamps requests in the account timezone while the card windows in UTC, and ingestion of the most recent few minutes can lag the live log.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

API Error Rate is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across EasyPost and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.