PCI DSS Compliance in Practice: Scope, SAQ Selection, and Cost Control
PCI DSS scope is decided by which systems card data flows through, not by transaction volume. This article unpacks the logic behind the four compliance levels, how to choose between SAQ A, SAQ A-EP, and SAQ D, the difference in compliance burden across four checkout architectures, and how tokenization and hosted checkout push scope to a minimum. It closes with a launch checklist you can work through line by line.