Therefore, by performing the burn-in test, system failures in the initial phase of use can be avoided, at the cost (trade-off) of a reduced time of use, due to the time duration of the burn-in process itself.

When the stress equivalent, in terms of useful life, is extended to the increasing part of the bathtub failure rate curve, the effect of the burn-in process is the reduction of the useful life of the product. In stable production, it is not easy to determine if there is a decrease in the failure rate. A large number of devices would have to be destroyed in order to determine the distribution of downtime for a low percentage of production.

For electronic components, burn-in testing is often conducted at high temperatures, and, at times, at high voltages.