Automation ROI Myths

The "Automate Everything" Trap

A VP reads a blog post and mandates: "All tests must be automated." Result: You spend $100 to automate a test that would cost $1 to run manually once a year.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

• Smoke Tests (Login, Checkout): High ROI. Run on every commit.
• Regression Suite: Medium ROI. Run nightly.
• Corner Cases (IE11 + Zoom to 200%): Negative ROI. Automating this takes 3 days and breaks every week.

Automated != Maintained

Code is liability. Test code is double liability.

• Every automated test requires maintenance when the UI changes.
• If you have 2,000 UI tests, you need 2 Full-Time Engineers just to keep the suite green.

The 80/20 Rule

Automate the Critical Path (80% of usage / 20% of flows). Leave the rest to:

1. Manual Exploratory Testing: Humans find "weird" bugs. Scripts only find "expected" bugs.
2. Bug Bounties: Cheaper than internal QA for security.