API Integration in New Zealand
Two systems that both hold the truth about your customers, and a person in the middle copying between them. Integration removes the person, and with them the typos, the delay and the arguments about which system is right.
$20k+
Typical project value
2 min
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What people usually mean by api integration
The interesting part of an integration is never the happy path — a competent developer can move data between two systems in an afternoon. The cost is in what happens when the other end is slow, down, or returns something nobody expected.
One-way, one record type
Orders into accounting, leads into a CRM, contacts into a mailing list. Predictable and well understood.
Several record types, with reconciliation
Multiple flows, with somewhere to see what failed and retry it safely.
Two-way synchronisation
Both systems can change the same record. Considerably harder, because something has to decide which change wins.
What it costs
Indicative ranges from projects posted here. Use them to sense-check a quote, not to budget precisely.
Single flow
One record type, one direction, with retries and an error log.
$8k – $20k
Multi-flow integration
Several record types, monitoring, reconciliation and a dashboard.
$20k – $50k
Two-way sync
Conflict rules, audit trail, and handling both ends changing at once.
$50k+
Questions worth asking a provider
·What happens when the other system is down or rate limits us?
·How do I see what failed, and retry it without creating duplicates?
·Which system is the master for each kind of record?
·What happens when their API changes — is that covered or a new job?
·How will we know it has silently stopped working?
Common questions
How much does an API integration cost?
One record type in one direction, built properly with retries and error handling, is $8,000 to $20,000. Several record types with reconciliation and monitoring is $20,000 to $50,000. Two-way synchronisation starts around $50,000, because deciding which side wins a conflict is genuinely difficult.
Why so much when both systems have APIs?
The APIs are the easy part. The cost is your business rules — which record matches which, what happens to a partial match, how a duplicate is resolved, what to do with a record that fails validation at the far end. Those decisions are yours and every one has to be encoded.
What if there is no API?
Then it is a file exchange, a database-level integration, or occasionally screen automation. All work, all are more fragile, and all cost more to maintain. If you are choosing software now and integration matters, a documented API is worth real money.
One-way or two-way?
Check whether you genuinely need two-way. Often each system is naturally the master for a different kind of record, and two one-way flows are far simpler and cheaper than true synchronisation.
How do we know it is still working?
It should tell you. A good integration has a screen showing what ran, what failed and why, and alerts someone when failures pile up. Without that you find out from a customer, weeks later.
Related: API Development · System Integration · Xero Integration · MYOB Integration · Microsoft 365 Integration · Salesforce Integration · HubSpot Integration · Shopify Integration
API Integration projects open right now
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Check whether someone has already built it
Before commissioning anything, look at both vendors' app marketplaces. Common pairs — a shopping cart to an accounting package, a CRM to a mailing list — often have a connector for $30 a month that does everything you need.
A developer worth hiring will tell you this and lose the job cheerfully. Custom integration is for what the marketplace does not cover: your own software, an unusual process, or a connector that does 80% and leaves the awkward part to a person.
The failure question
Ask every developer: what happens when the other system is unavailable?
It will be. Maintenance windows, outages, and rate limits that a busy system will hit. A good answer describes queuing, retrying with backoff, and surfacing anything that still fails where a human will see it, with a retry that cannot create a duplicate.
A bad answer is that it will not happen. That integration will lose data, and you will discover it at month end.
Duplicates are the classic failure
The most common defect in a rushed integration is the same record arriving twice after a retry. Two invoices, two orders, two contacts with slightly different spellings.
Ask how each record is uniquely identified across both systems, and what stops a retry creating a second copy. The answer should be specific — an idempotency key, a stored external reference — rather than a promise to be careful.
Decide who owns what
For every kind of record, one system should be the master. Your ordering system owns orders. Your accounting system owns invoices. Your CRM owns contacts.
Where two systems both claim a record, you need conflict rules, and that is what makes two-way synchronisation expensive. Deciding ownership up front often turns an expensive sync into two cheap one-way flows.
Comparing quotes
- Failure handling, described without prompting.
- A screen you can look at showing what ran and what failed.
- Marketplace honesty. Did anyone check for an existing connector?
- Ongoing compatibility. APIs change. Is that included or billed later?
Name the two systems and what is being typed twice today. Developers who work with those APIs will tell you whether it is a small job, a large one, or an app you can buy.
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