1. You need API-grade reliability and monitoring
- Choose an API-centric automation platform or workflow engine (Zapier, Make, n8n) or engineering-led solutions with robust logging and retry semantics.
2. Your target websites change frequently or are hostile to automation
- UI automations are prone to breakage; consider API integrations or engineering-driven automation with testing and monitoring.
3. You require mature enterprise governance
- If SSO/SAML, SCIM provisioning, audit logs, and compliance documentation are mandatory, consider established enterprise automation platforms unless the vendor can provide these artifacts.
4. You have engineering resources and the workflow is business-critical
- Developer-built solutions (Playwright, Selenium, or custom services) provide greater maintainability at scale.
5. Transparent pricing is essential for procurement
- If a pilot cannot be scoped without known costs and tiers, undisclosed pricing is a procurement blocker.