How to Evaluate an Embedded iPaaS (Key Criteria & Questions)

Embedded iPaaS solutions assist SaaS companies in delivering product integrations quickly, without sidelining their core product development. Embedded iPaaS serves a unique purpose compared to standard iPaaS solutions, specifically providing the integration infrastructure needed to deliver integrations that your customers use.

Conventional iPaaS tools were developed for businesses seeking a means to integrate their internal systems seamlessly. iPaaS offerings cater to diverse company sizes – think of Boomi and Mulesoft for large enterprises, Tray and Workato for midsize companies, and Zapier for smaller firms. This diversity reflects varying complexities and structures. Most iPaaS systems include visual workflow builders that theoretically allow business users to modify data flows. However, in practice, these builders often demand substantial technical and data knowledge, along with custom coding to meet specific business goals.

Embedded iPaaS supports SaaS businesses with building and offering integrations and automation to their users. This means that integrations built with an embedded iPaaS must facilitate integration for dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of businesses, not just one. This introduces complexities related to managing accounts and customizing integrations on a larger scale. This means embedded iPaaS solutions have their own unique set of criteria for evaluation.

Related Content >> What is embedded iPaaS?

For an embedded iPaaS to be effective, it needs to facilitate the ability to customize integrations between different platforms and systems in order to meet customers' specific integrations, integration settings, and integration history (logs of data flows and syncs). Additionally, an embedded iPaaS should enable a B2B SaaS company to empower customers to independently discover, install, configure, and troubleshoot integrations.

How to Evaluate Fit and Functionality of an Embedded iPaaS

When considering the adoption of an embedded iPaaS solution within your SaaS product, it's important to ensure it aligns with your unique needs.

Here are the key criteria that warrant a closer look:

Pricing and Cost

- How does your pricing model scale with increased usage or data volume?Are there thresholds that, once exceeded, significantly increase costs?

- What options are available if we find our initial usage estimates are significantly different from actual sage? How flexible is your billing inaccommodating such changes?

Connection to APIs and Apps

- What kind of pre-built connectors do you offer, and how often do you update or add new ones?

- Is there a fee for adding new connectors, and how is the connector roadmap prioritized?

- What do your connectors handle?Anything outside of handling the authentication?

Customization and Flexibility

- What is the process for creating and updating the business logic and configurations for an integration?

- (For low-code or no-code embedded iPaaS tools): Are our integrations and their configurations only limited by what is offered by predefined actions and endpoints in a workflow tool?What is the process for providing new functionality we need?

- Can we directly access and manipulateAPI requests and responses for more granular control and customization?Does the platform support all functionsacross all APIs for a partner system?

- Do you support integrations with nonstandard or legacy systems?

- Can you provide examples of how your platform has handled complex integration scenarios?

Visibility and Debugging

- What tools and features do you provide for monitoring and debugging integrations?

- Are we able to gain visibility into the raw API requests and responses within your platform?

- What support and resources are available for trouble shooting integration issues, especially those related to custom functionality?

Performance and Reliability

- How do you ensure the reliability and performance of integrations, particularly for complex or high volume data operations?

- Can you share examples of how your platform has handled performance optimization and reliability challenges in real-world scenarios?

- What is your uptime SLA?

Platform Implementation

- What support channels are available?Is there a cost associated?

- Do you offer a support SLA? What remediation is available?

- Can you outline the typical steps and timeline for integrating your iPaaS solution with our existing systems?

- What resources and support do you provide to facilitate embedding your PaaS into our platform?

- What is the learning curve for our developers? Will they need to undergo specialized training to use the platform? What support do you offer?

- Do you offer free onboarding?

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By taking these practical points into account, you can confidently decide whether an embedded iPaaS is a good move for your SaaS product, making sure it's a valuable addition that fits well with your growth plans.

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If you want to dive deeper into how to choose the best embedded iPaas solution, you can download our guide here.

And if you want to compare different embedded iPaaS options you can read our guide here.