API
Sending an email to a contact
POST /people/send-email sends a one-off email to one of your contacts from your own sending domain, and logs it in Gorilla Dash so the send is recorded against them.
Last updated September 2, 2026
POST https://api.gorilladash.com/api/v1/people/send-email sends a single email to one contact. Gorilla Dash supplies the sender identity — the from name, the reply-to address and your organisation's sending domain, or the tribe's where you have named one — and logs the send, so it appears in Gorilla Dash rather than vanishing into your own mail server.
It is for transactional, one-to-one messages: a booking confirmation, a follow-up triggered by something in your own system. It is not a campaign tool — use Marketing Automations for anything that goes to more than one person.
The payload
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
person_id | Yes | The contact to email. From GET /people. |
subject | Yes | The subject line. |
body | Yes | The complete HTML body of the email, sent exactly as you supply it. |
tribe_id | No | Send as this tribe. Organisation keys only. |
tribe_slug | No | Same, by slug. |
global_id | No | Same, by the tribe's global id. |
{"person_id":48210,"subject":"Your quote is ready","body":"<p>Hi Sam, your quote is attached to your account.</p>"}
On a tribe key the tribe is always that key's own tribe, and the three tribe fields are ignored. On an organisation key, name a tribe with any one of them; the tribe must be active. Name none and the email goes out as the organisation.
What comes back
A 201 with {"log_uuid":"..."} — the identifier of the log entry created for this send. Keep it against your own record if you want to trace a specific message later.
Errors
| Code | Cause |
|---|---|
| 404 | The contact does not exist, is not yours, has no email address, or the tribe you named is not an active tribe in your organisation. |
| 422 | A required field is missing. |
| 403 | The RESTful API is switched off for your organisation. |
A contact with a blank email address is treated as not found, not as a validation error. If you are sending in bulk, check for an email address on your side first so a run of 404s does not look like a scoping problem.
Things to be careful about
- Each call sends one email. Sending to a hundred people is a hundred calls, and the rate limit applies.
- The contact does not have to have opted in to marketing for this to send, so it is on you to only use it for messages the contact is expecting.
bodyis the complete HTML body, sent exactly as you supply it. There is no Gorilla Dash template around it — no header, no footer, no styling, and a plain-text body will render as one run-on line. Send finished HTML.- There is no attachment support on this endpoint.