I don't know of a simple answer to this, almost every cyclists issue at one time or another. I've given away a couple of cardboard boxes of saddles over the years. Performance Bike had a policy of no questions returns on saddles in perfect condition in their original packaging. So I used to order 3 at a time and try them out, hopefully keeping one. I don't know if they still do that or not, but they have quite a wide selection of saddles at good prices. I'd wash saddles to be returned and zip tie them back into their packaging.

Saddle experimentation is a real PITA as it were, but I don't know another way to do it. OTOH, some folks are perfectly happy with the saddle which came on their bike, thus having quite a wide latitude in saddle shape and padding. Not everyone is so lucky.

As noted above, the shorter one's rides, the less it matters. In my case, I never know if a saddle will work for me or not until after the 3rd hour. The best way to condition one's butt to a saddle is to take a short ride on it almost every day for a couple of weeks. People talk about breaking in a saddle. What's really going on is breaking in one's butt to suit the saddle.