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PagerDuty Zapier integrationAutomate PagerDuty with Zapier.

The PagerDuty Zapier integration gives you 1 trigger, 4 actions and 1 search: open, acknowledge and resolve incidents from your other tools, or start work elsewhere the moment an incident changes. What it costs, what breaks, and your first Zap.

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Overview

What the PagerDuty Zapier integration actually does

Connecting PagerDuty to Zapier lets your other apps open, acknowledge or close incidents without anyone logging in, and lets a new or changed incident set off work somewhere else. Zapier sits in the middle: it waits for one event, then runs the steps you lined up behind it. No code, but a handful of settings that decide whether it works.

Incidents that open themselves. A support ticket flagged as urgent or a failed check in a spreadsheet can call Add Trigger Event and open an incident on the right PagerDuty service, with its notes already filled in and no copy and paste.

A clean close. When the problem is fixed elsewhere, Add Acknowledge Event and Add Resolve Event update the very same incident, matched by its incident key, so nothing stays open by mistake.

A name instead of a service. Find User on Call looks up who holds a schedule, so the next message can say who is on it.

What Zapier does not do for PagerDuty: there is a single trigger, and the three event actions only accept services set up for API calls, never an email integration. Anything beyond that goes through API Request (Beta), which asks for someone who reads API docs. The same app also has a PagerDuty n8n integration page and a PagerDuty Make integration page, worth reading before you commit to one tool.

Vocabulary

Zapier vocabulary in one minute

Seven words come back on every line of this page. Here they are in plain English, once.

Zap
The automation you build on Zapier: one trigger, then one or more actions that run every time the trigger event happens.
Trigger
The event in an app that starts the Zap. Once the Zap is switched on, Zapier waits for that event and nothing else.
Action
What the Zap does once it has started: the step that writes, sends or changes something in an app on your behalf.
Task
The unit Zapier bills: one action your Zap completes successfully. The number printed on your plan counts those.
Polling vs instant
A polling trigger is checked on a timer by Zapier. An instant trigger is reported by the app itself, the moment the event happens.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap go on only when what arrived meets the condition you set, and quietly stops it otherwise.
Search step
A step that looks up something already stored in an app, so the steps after it can reuse what it found.
Cost

What a PagerDuty Zap really costs

The PagerDuty side is cheap: the trigger never costs a task, and PagerDuty is not a premium app, so it works on the free plan.

  • Trigger0 tasks, whatever the volume
  • Each successful action1 task
  • Free plan100 tasks a month, two-step Zaps
  • Premium appNo, free plan accepted

Each action that succeeds counts as one task; one that fails is not counted. The free plan stops at two steps, one trigger and one action. Add a filter, a search or a second action and you have a multi-step Zap, which needs a paid plan. Each action is billed on its own, so a three-action Zap eats three times more than a one-action Zap. The interval grid only concerns polling triggers, and the PagerDuty trigger is instant, so it skips the grid entirely.

Connect

Connect your PagerDuty account in three steps

  1. 01

    Open the Apps page

    In your Zapier account, go to Apps and click + Add connection. A connection is your PagerDuty account linked to Zapier once, then reused by every step that talks to PagerDuty.

  2. 02

    Pick PagerDuty

    Type PagerDuty in the search box of the dialog, select it, then click Add connection. A new browser tab opens on the PagerDuty sign-in screen, where you log in next.

  3. 03

    Sign in and grant access

    Log in with an account that sees the services and schedules your Zaps will touch, then grant Zapier access. Anything you do not own yourself needs read or write access granted on the PagerDuty side first.

First Zap

Your first PagerDuty Zap

GoalRaise every matching incident of one PagerDuty service on a second service, so a second team gets paged as well.

  1. 01

    Create the Zap

    Start a new Zap and pick PagerDuty as the app that starts it. Choose New or Updated Incident as the event, then select the connection you made earlier.

  2. 02

    Set the trigger

    Enter the Service ID of the service to watch, which is required. Test it: Zapier brings back the three most recent incidents of the account, so you map fields on a real one.

  3. 03

    Add the filter

    Click the plus icon, add Filter, then fill the field, the rule and the value. A text rule only works on text. The filter makes this a multi-step Zap, so a paid plan is needed.

  4. 04

    Add the action

    Add PagerDuty again and choose Add Trigger Event. Paste the Integration Key of the second service and map a Description from the incident above. Both fields are required.

  5. 05

    Test, then publish

    Run each step once and read what came back before going further. When the test incident appears on the second service, click Publish to switch the Zap on.

Triggers

PagerDuty trigger

1 event starts a Zap when something happens in PagerDuty, and one of them is instant: the app calls Zapier straight away, whatever your plan.

1

New or Updated Incident

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when new incidents are created, or when existing incidents change state.”

Starts your Zap when an incident appears on the PagerDuty service you choose, and again every time an existing incident on that service changes state.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan.
When to use it
mirroring every incident on one critical service into the chat or ticketing tool your team actually watches.
Watch out
the Service ID is required, so one Zap follows one service. Since both new incidents and state changes set it off, add a filter when only one of the two matters to you.
Actions

PagerDuty actions

PagerDuty gives you 4 actions. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

1

Add Acknowledge Event

Action

In Zapier“Acknowledge the incident with this Incident Key.”

Marks an open incident as acknowledged, the signal that someone has picked it up. The incident is found through its Incident Key, the string that identifies it.

When to use it
an agent assigns the matching helpdesk ticket to themselves and PagerDuty should reflect it.
Watch out
the Integration Key must come from a service built for API calls; an email integration will not work.
2

Add Resolve Event

Action

In Zapier“Resolve the incident with this Incident Key.”

Closes an incident from outside PagerDuty, using the same Incident Key that opened it, so nobody logs in just to tick it off.

When to use it
the customer ticket behind the incident is closed, and the alert should close with it.
Watch out
carry the key over from the step that created the incident rather than retyping it; one wrong character and the right incident stays open.
3

Add Trigger Event

Action

In Zapier“Trigger an incident in PagerDuty with this Incident Key.”

Opens a fresh incident on the service whose Integration Key you paste, with the Description you map added as its notes. This is how another tool raises an incident in PagerDuty.

When to use it
an urgent form, a failed payment or a broken check should wake someone up instead of waiting in a queue.
Watch out
the Description is required and lands in front of the responder, so map something readable rather than a raw ID.
4

API Request (Beta)

Action

In Zapier“This is an advanced action which makes a raw HTTP request that includes this integration's authentication.”

An advanced action that sends a raw request to PagerDuty with your connection's sign-in already attached. It covers what the ready-made operations leave out.

When to use it
someone on the team knows the PagerDuty API and needs one call that has no dedicated action.
Watch out
requests only reach PagerDuty's own domains, and Stop on error decides whether a failed call halts the Zap or lets it run on.
Searches

PagerDuty search

1 search step looks for data that already exists in PagerDuty, so a later step can use it.

A search step finds something that already exists in PagerDuty and hands it to the next steps. Three settings decide what happens when the answer is not the one you expected.

1

Find User on Call

Search

In Zapier“Find the user on call for a specific schedule.”

Looks up who is on call for one schedule, inside the start and end time you give, and passes that person to the steps that follow.

When to use it
the alert you post about a new incident should name the person holding the pager, not only the service.
Watch out
Schedule, Start Time and End Time are all required. Relative values such as +1 month work, so check that the window really covers the moment you care about.

The three settings every search exposes

  1. Successful if no search results are found?
    Left on its default, a search that finds nobody stops the Zap there, and the steps relying on it are skipped. Switched on, the Zap carries on empty-handed.
  2. Create X if it doesn't exist yet?
    This box turns a search into a find-or-create. Find User on Call has no such variant on Zapier, so nothing gets created here.
  3. If multiple search results are found?
    Three ways out when several people match: keep the first one, which is the default, stop the Zap, or pass all of them on at once.
When it breaks

When a PagerDuty Zap breaks

Most failures here are not bugs. They come from how Zapier works and from the type of PagerDuty service you point at.

Zapier attaches no help article to this app, so the four cases below come from Zapier's general limits and from the field help of the event actions. When a Zap stops anyway, the Zapier troubleshooting guide walks through the next checks.

  • Old incidents are never picked up

    A Zap only reacts to what happens after you switch it on. Incidents that were already open stay untouched, and moving that backlog is a separate job.

  • A Zap that pages itself

    Watch a service with New or Updated Incident and send Add Trigger Event back to that same service, and every incident restarts the Zap, burning tasks fast.

  • Flood protection holds the trigger

    When a trigger suddenly returns a huge batch, after a bulk import or a migration, Zapier's flood protection can hold it back instead of running every item.

  • Email services refuse the events

    The three event actions only work on services set up for API calls. Point one at an email integration and it fails: no task billed, but no alert sent either.
Need help

Need help automating PagerDuty with Zapier?

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FAQ

PagerDuty and Zapier: common questions

01Is the PagerDuty Zapier integration free?
Yes, it runs on the free plan, because PagerDuty is not a premium app. The free plan gives 100 tasks a month, an unlimited number of Zaps, and Zaps of two steps: one trigger and one action. That is enough to open an incident from a form or to post new incidents into another tool. The ceiling appears as soon as you add a filter, a search such as Find User on Call, or a second action: the Zap becomes multi-step and needs a paid plan. No price is given here, since Zapier changes its grid often.
02How many tasks does a PagerDuty Zap use?
One per action that succeeds, and nothing for the trigger. A Zap that watches New or Updated Incident and runs one action costs one task each time it goes through. Keep in mind that the trigger fires on new incidents and again whenever an existing incident changes state, so one incident can start the Zap several times over its life. An action that fails is not counted. On a busy service, a filter that only lets through the changes you care about is the simplest way to keep the count down.
03Is the PagerDuty trigger instant?
Yes. New or Updated Incident is an instant trigger: PagerDuty tells Zapier as soon as an incident is created or changes state, so the Zap starts right away. The interval grid of the plans, 15 minutes on Free, 2 on Professional and 1 on Team and Enterprise, only applies to polling triggers, which Zapier checks on a timer. PagerDuty has no polling trigger on Zapier, so a free account reacts as fast as an Enterprise one. In the editor, a Zap built on an instant trigger shows a lightning bolt.
04What does connecting PagerDuty to Zapier require?
A PagerDuty account, plus read or write access on any service or schedule you do not own and want a Zap to touch. The connection itself is quick: open Apps in Zapier, click + Add connection, pick PagerDuty, then sign in and grant access in the tab that opens. Beyond the login, keep two values close by: the Service ID the trigger asks for, and the Integration Key of each service your actions write to. That key has to belong to a service set up for API calls.
05Why does Add Trigger Event fail on some PagerDuty services?
Because those services receive their alerts by email. The Integration Key of the three event actions, Add Trigger Event, Add Acknowledge Event and Add Resolve Event, only works with services set up for API calls, and the field help says plainly that an email integration will not work if selected. The fix is on the PagerDuty side: take the key of a service that receives API calls. The failed runs cost no task, since only successful actions are billed, but no incident was opened either, so test before relying on it.
06What if the PagerDuty operation you need is missing?
Then API Request (Beta) is the way out. It sends a raw request to PagerDuty with the sign-in of your connection already attached, so nobody handles credentials by hand. It does need someone at ease with the PagerDuty API documentation, since you set the method and the address yourself, and requests can only go to PagerDuty's own domains. The Stop on error setting decides whether a failed call halts the Zap or lets the next steps run anyway. For a single missing call, that usually beats switching tools.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for PagerDuty?
It depends on criteria, not on a winner. Setup effort: Zapier gets an incident flow running from a guided editor. Cost model: Zapier bills every successful action as a task, so a noisy service with many state changes adds up, and the other two bill in their own way, worth checking before you compare. Coverage: on Zapier, PagerDuty offers one trigger, three event actions, one search and a raw request. If your flow needs something outside that list, read the Make and n8n pages for this app first.
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