Laravel + Queues: How We Handle Background Jobs at Scale (Mail, PDF, Webhooks & More)

In high-performance apps, background tasks aren’t optional — they’re essential. With Laravel Queues and Jobs, we push time-consuming work like email, PDF generation, webhook calls, and billing operations into the background — keeping the app fast, smooth, and scalable.

🚀 What Are Laravel Queues?

Laravel Queues let you defer time-heavy operations so they don’t block the user. This means:

• ✅ Better response times
• ✅ Safe retries and failure tracking
• ✅ Real-time processing for async tasks

Laravel supports queues via database, Redis, Amazon SQS, Beanstalkd, and more.

🔧 Common Use Cases We Handle with Queues

• 📧 Sending transactional or bulk emails
• 📄 Generating PDFs like invoices, reports, or receipts
• 🔗 Calling third-party APIs (payment, CRMs, SMS, etc.)
• 📥 Processing webhook events (like Stripe, Razorpay)
• 📊 Running exports or data analysis scripts

⚙️ Creating a Basic Laravel Job

Here’s how we define a simple email-sending job:

php artisan make:job SendInvoiceMail

// app/Jobs/SendInvoiceMail.php
public function handle()
{
    Mail::to($this->user->email)->send(new InvoiceMailable($this->invoice));
}
    

Dispatch it like this:

SendInvoiceMail::dispatch($user, $invoice);

This job now runs in the background queue, not during the main request.

🔁 Setting Up Queues in Laravel

To start using queues:

1. Set QUEUE_CONNECTION=database (or Redis) in .env
2. Run: php artisan queue:table + php artisan migrate
3. Start worker: php artisan queue:work

📄 PDF Generation in Laravel Jobs

We often generate PDFs like invoices, receipts, or reports in the background using dompdf or snappy:

$pdf = PDF::loadView('pdf.invoice', ['invoice' => $invoice]);
Storage::put("invoices/inv-{$invoice->id}.pdf", $pdf->output());
    

This process runs in a job so the user doesn’t wait while it renders and saves.

🔗 Webhooks, API Calls, and External Services

API response times vary — so we defer them:

Http::post('https://api.thirdparty.com/push', [
  'id' => $user->id,
  'event' => 'order_completed'
]);
    

Using a queue job ensures we retry failed API calls and avoid crashes due to timeouts.

🛡️ Retry & Failure Handling

Laravel lets you control retries and failures:

public $tries = 5;
public $timeout = 20;
public function failed(Exception $exception)
{
    Log::error('Job failed: ' . $exception->getMessage());
}
    

We also monitor failed jobs with php artisan queue:failed and even send email alerts.

📊 Queue Monitoring in Production

• 🔁 Use Supervisor to run persistent queue workers
• 📈 Use Laravel Horizon for Redis queue UI + monitoring
• 🛎️ We set up Slack or email alerts for failed or stuck jobs

📦 Real Example: E-Commerce Order Processing

In one project, our Laravel backend:

• 🧾 Generated PDF receipts for every order
• 📬 Sent mail to customer + vendor
• 🔁 Synced stock count with 3rd party ERP via webhook

All of this was handled asynchronously using Laravel queue jobs — zero delay for the user.