Authentication

To access the Pardot API with an SSO enabled user (including users synced from Salesforce), you must use a Salesforce OAuth endpoint for authentication. To access the Pardot API with a Pardot-only user (created within Pardot and not synced to Salesforce), you must use the Pardot API login endpoint for authentication. These options are described below.

Via Salesforce OAuth

Prerequisites:

  1. You must have Salesforce OAuth setup in the org. To setup up a connected app for OAuth, the "pardot_api" scope must be one of the selected OAuth scopes. Otherwise, OAuth flows other than username/password flow will not be usable with the Pardot API.

  2. You must have the Pardot Business Unit ID that you are trying to authenticate with. To find the Pardot Business Unit ID, use Setup in Salesforce. From Setup, enter "Pardot Account Setup" in the Quick Find box. Your Pardot Business Unit ID begins with "0Uv" and is 18 characters long. If you cannot access the Pardot Account Setup information, ask your Salesforce Administrator to provide you with the Pardot Business Unit ID.

  3. Authenticate with a user that is SSO enabled. An SSO enabled user is one who can log in to the Pardot user interface (https://pi.pardot.com) using "Log In with Salesforce" or who can access Pardot using the Pardot Lightning App.

Obtain Salesforce Access Token

To use Pardot API with an SSO user, you must first get a salesforce access token. The example below uses the username/password OAuth flow to obtain an access token for simplicity. Any OAuth flow can be used to obtain an access token. In many use cases, other OAuth flows are more appropriate than username/password flow. For example, a web app with user interaction would likely use either user agent flow or web server flow. See Salesforce OAuth setup for details.

Sample POST Request for OAuth Token

POST https://login.salesforce.com/services/oauth2/token HTTP/1.1

grant_type=password
client_id=<client_id>
client_secret=<client_secret>
username=<username>
password=<password>

Request Parameters

Parameter Required Description
grant_type X The value must be "password"
client_id X The consumer key
client_secret X The consumer secret
username X The email address of the SSO user account
password X The password of the SSO user account

If authentication is successful, an access token is be returned. See Salesforce OAuth documentation for the response format.

Using Access Token with Pardot

After you get the access token, you must pass it and the Pardot Business Unit ID using the Authorization and Pardot-Business-Unit-Id headers.

Sample Request

POST https://pi.pardot.com/api/<object>/version/<version>/do/<op> HTTP/1.1

Authorization: Bearer <access_token>
Pardot-Business-Unit-Id: <business_unit_id>

Request Parameters

Parameter Required Description
access_token X Access token obtained from Salesforce OAuth Endpoint
business_unit_id X Pardot Business Unit ID

If a valid access token is provided with a valid business unit ID, the Pardot endpoint should work as expected.

Note: The Pardot API does not enforce IP address restrictions that are configured using the Salesforce option "Enforce login IP ranges on every request".

Via Pardot API login endpoint

Note: In the Spring '21 and later releases of the Pardot API, authentication with the API key / user key will not be supported.

Request Format

Authentication requests sent to the Pardot API:

  1. Must be made via SSL encrypted connection
  2. Must use HTTP POST
  3. Must contain the email, password, and user_key for the Pardot user account that will be submitting API requests

Login requests that meet these criteria are granted an API key.

API user keys are available in Pardot under {your email address} > Settings in the API User Key row. For assistance in acquiring your user key, contact your Pardot support representative.

In accounts with Salesforce User Sync enabled, you must authenticate with a Pardot-only user. SSO users aren't supported with this authentication type. OAuth authentication must be used for SSO users.

Both User and API keys are unique to individual users. API keys are valid for 60 minutes. In contrast, user keys are valid indefinitely.

Sample POST Request

POST https://pi.pardot.com/api/login/version/3 HTTP/1.1

email=<email>&password=<password>&user_key=<user_key>

Request Parameters

Parameter Required Description
email X User account email address
password X User account password
user_key X User account 32-character hexadecimal user key

If authentication was successful, an API key will be returned in the following format:

<rsp stat="ok" version="1.0">
    <api_key>5a1698a233e73d7c8ccd60d775fbc68a</api_key>
</rsp>

Otherwise, the response will contain the following:

<rsp stat="fail" version="1.0">
    <err code="15">Login failed</err>
</rsp>

Subsequent authentication requests return either the current valid API key or a newly generated API key if the previous one expired.