PCI DSS SAQ Types Explained: Which One Actually Needs an ASV Scan?
PCI DSS SAQ types explained: compare SAQ A, SAQ A-EP, and SAQ D, and find out exactly which one requires a quarterly ASV scan. Get scan-ready today.
Secusy vs. Accorian ASV matters more than most businesses realize when choosing a PCI ASV scanning vendor. Choosing the wrong provider can mean failed compliance submissions, delayed audits, and unnecessary exposure to payment card security risks; none of which any business can afford in today’s regulatory environment.
Secusy and Accorian represent two different approaches to the PCI DSS compliance space. Secusy operates as a focused, PCI SSC-approved scanning vendor with a clear mandate: delivering reliable, affordable external vulnerability scans that satisfy PCI DSS requirements for businesses of all sizes. Accorian, by contrast, positions itself as a broader cybersecurity services firm, spanning HITRUST, ISO, NIST, SOC 1/2, GDPR, HIPAA, and CMMC, where ASV scanning sits alongside a much larger catalogue of security offerings. Understanding the distinction between these two models is essential before committing to either.
This comparison is written for business owners, IT managers, and MSP partners who need a clear, evidence-based assessment of both providers, not marketing language. It’s based on what each vendor actually publishes about its PCI ASV service, including a direct review of Accorian’s public PCI ASV page. Whether you’re running a small e-commerce operation that processes card payments or managing a mid-market infrastructure with multiple compliance requirements, the right PCI ASV scan provider makes compliance achievable rather than overwhelming.
PCI ASV (Approved Scanning Vendor): An organization approved by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) to perform external vulnerability scans as required under PCI DSS Requirement 11.3. Only scans from approved vendors are accepted for formal compliance validation.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard): A set of security standards established by the PCI SSC to protect cardholder data. Businesses that store, process, or transmit payment card information must comply with PCI DSS, which includes quarterly external vulnerability scanning by an approved vendor.
External Vulnerability Scan: An automated security assessment performed from outside an organization's network perimeter to identify exploitable vulnerabilities that could be leveraged by external attackers to access cardholder data environments.
PCI SSC Approval: Formal recognition granted by the PCI Security Standards Council confirming that a scanning vendor meets the technical and procedural standards required to produce compliant ASV scan reports.
A PCI ASV scanning vendor is not simply a company that runs automated scans; it's an entity that has earned formal approval from the PCI SSC and is held to technical and procedural standards that determine whether your compliance reports will be accepted by acquiring banks and card brands.
The PCI DSS landscape has matured considerably, and businesses today face a more complex vendor market than they did even a few years ago. On one side, you have focused ASV providers whose entire operation is built around the scanning and compliance workflow. On the other, you have broad cybersecurity firms that have added ASV capabilities to an already large service catalog. Both models have their place, but they serve fundamentally different buyer needs.
For an SMB owner trying to achieve and maintain PCI compliance, this distinction matters. A focused ASV provider typically means cleaner workflows, faster scan completion, simpler reporting, and support staff who understand the PCI DSS compliance journey inside and out. A broader cybersecurity firm may offer impressive credentials across many domains, but the attention and process clarity you need for quarterly scanning can get lost inside a larger service portfolio.
Secusy was built within this context, as a dedicated PCI ASV vendor that treats PCI ASV scanning as a primary discipline, not a secondary offering. That focus shapes everything from onboarding to the quality of remediation guidance delivered alongside each scan report.
Start with a PCI SSC-approved vendor built for straightforward, affordable quarterly compliance.
Secusy is a dedicated PCI ASV scanning vendor; Accorian is a multi-framework compliance and penetration testing consultancy where PCI ASV is one of 30+ listed services.
Factor | Secusy | Accorian |
|---|---|---|
Core focus | Dedicated PCI ASV scanning vendor | Multi-framework compliance & pentest consultancy |
PCI ASV positioning | Primary product line | One of 30+ listed services (under both PCI DSS and Penetration Testing menus) |
Target buyer | SMBs and mid-market businesses | Enterprises with multi-framework requirements |
Site depth on ASV | Dedicated resource hub (pricing, frequency, requirements, platform-specific guides) | Single page, ~2-minute read, 3 FAQs |
Published pricing | Dedicated cost/pricing content available | Not published on the ASV page |
Onboarding | Designed to be fast and self-service | Consulting-led, engagement-scoped |
Best fit | Businesses whose primary need is quarterly PCI ASV scanning | Businesses already buying broader audit/pentest services |
Secusy is a PCI SSC-approved ASV built specifically for SMBs and mid-market businesses that need straightforward, affordable, and transparent PCI DSS vulnerability scanning.
Secusy’s entire service design revolves around the PCI DSS compliance cycle. The platform, support model, reporting structure, and pricing are all calibrated to help businesses complete their quarterly external vulnerability scans and maintain ongoing compliance with minimal friction. The onboarding process is designed to be fast, and scan reports are formatted to meet PCI SSC requirements without requiring additional interpretation before submission.
Secusy maintains a dedicated resource hub covering ASV scan requirements, scan frequency, pricing models, what’s included in a scan, how to prepare for vulnerability scanning, and platform-specific compliance guidance for environments like Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe, and Cloudflare. For MSP partners managing PCI compliance on behalf of multiple clients, Secusy’s multi-client management capabilities and white-label options provide the operational leverage needed to deliver consistent compliance outcomes across an entire client portfolio, without margin erosion.
This specialist structure matters for practical reasons: buyers can see expected costs before talking to sales, understand exactly what a scan covers, and find guidance specific to their tech stack rather than generic compliance language written for a dozen different frameworks.
Accorian PCI ASV scanning is offered as one component of a much larger multi-compliance and penetration testing practice, with limited ASV-specific detail published publicly.
Accorian is a compliance and penetration testing firm headquartered in New Jersey, with additional offices in Canada and India. Its service catalog spans HITRUST, ISO certifications (27001, 27701, 42001, and others), NIST assessments, SOC 1 and SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, CMMC, red teaming, and multiple penetration testing disciplines.
Within that catalog, PCI ASV appears as a sub-service listed under both the “PCI DSS” and “Penetration Testing” menus. Accorian’s own page describes its approach across six steps: scope identification, external vulnerability scanning, vulnerability validation, risk prioritization, remediation guidance, and rescanning for compliance verification. It also outlines four general criteria merchants and service providers must meet, such as quarterly external scans and rescans until issues are resolved.
What the page does not include is any ASV-specific pricing, expected turnaround time between scan and report, details on scanning technology or a self-service dashboard, or FAQs beyond three general questions. The client statistics featured on the page, client count, retention rate, and framework count, describe Accorian’s overall consulting business rather than ASV scanning specifically.
Accorian brings genuine value to organizations with complex, multi-framework security requirements and the internal capacity to manage a broader vendor relationship. The question is whether that breadth serves or hinders the specific, time-sensitive requirements of PCI DSS vulnerability scanning.
Choose a dedicated PCI ASV vendor when scanning is a recurring operational need you want streamlined; choose a generalist consultancy when you need PCI ASV bundled with broader compliance or penetration testing work.
A PCI ASV scan is a recurring, operational requirement; it happens every quarter, indefinitely, for as long as your business is in PCI DSS scope. That makes it fundamentally different from a one-time audit or annual assessment. A generalist consultancy is well-suited to organizations that need PCI ASV bundled alongside broader work, say, a HITRUST certification or a penetration test, and prefer a single vendor relationship.
But a service that’s one of 30+ offerings is less likely to have deep, ASV-specific self-service tooling, published pricing, or content built around the exact questions ASV customers ask quarter after quarter. When you contact a broad cybersecurity firm about a specific PCI ASV scan question, you may or may not reach someone whose primary expertise is the PCI compliance workflow. When you contact a focused ASV provider like Secusy, that specificity of knowledge is the baseline expectation, a meaningful difference when compliance timelines are tight and submission deadlines are real.
Talk to a Secusy PCI compliance expert and get your scan requirements mapped to your platform.
The most important criteria are PCI SSC approval status, scan report quality, remediation support, pricing transparency, and the vendor's ability to support your compliance cycle on an ongoing quarterly basis.
This is the foundation. No matter how sophisticated a vendor's technology or how credible its team, if it's not on the PCI SSC's current list of approved scanning vendors, its reports won't satisfy your compliance requirements. Always verify approval status directly through the PCI SSC website before proceeding with any vendor evaluation.
A scan report that identifies vulnerabilities but provides no actionable remediation guidance creates more work for your team, not less. The best PCI ASV scan providers deliver reports that are readable by IT managers without deep security expertise, clearly prioritize vulnerabilities by risk level, and provide remediation steps that are practical for a real business environment.
One of the most consistent pain points businesses report when engaging cybersecurity vendors is pricing opacity. Hidden fees, scope creep, and unclear renewal terms can turn a seemingly affordable scanning solution into a costly one over time. For MSP partners managing multiple client environments, pricing clarity also simplifies resale and margin calculation.
PCI DSS compliance is not a one-time event. Quarterly scanning, evidence collection, and periodic re-assessment are ongoing obligations. A vendor that treats each scan as a transactional engagement rather than a continuous compliance relationship will cost you more in time and effort over the course of a compliance year.
In a direct PCI Approved Scanning Vendor comparison, Secusy and Accorian differ most in primary market positioning, Secusy is built specifically for PCI compliance scanning, while Accorian operates as a multi-service cybersecurity consultancy where ASV scanning is one of several offerings.
The point at which this comparison becomes decisive is when a business asks a simple question: what do I actually need right now? For most SMBs and mid-market businesses with card payment environments, the primary requirement is passing a quarterly PCI ASV scan and maintaining a clean compliance record. That’s precisely the use case Secusy is engineered to serve: efficiently, affordably, and with support that understands the specific language of PCI DSS compliance rather than generalized cybersecurity advisory.
It’s also worth noting that the PCI SSC maintains a current, publicly available list of approved scanning vendors, and approval status should be the first criterion any business checks before engaging a provider. Confirming current approval status on the official PCI SSC website is a non-negotiable step in the selection process, regardless of which vendor you’re evaluating.
Secusy publishes ASV pricing guidance and cost drivers directly on its site; Accorian's PCI ASV page requires a direct inquiry to get pricing.
Accorian’s PCI ASV page does not publish pricing, which is consistent with a consulting-led sales model where costs are typically scoped per engagement after a conversation with the sales team. Pricing structures at broader cybersecurity firms often reflect the full scope of their capabilities, which may not align with the budget expectations of an SMB that simply needs a clean quarterly scan and a compliant report.
Secusy, by contrast, publishes dedicated content explaining PCI ASV pricing models and scan cost drivers, giving prospective customers a starting point for budgeting before they ever need a sales call, a meaningful advantage for businesses that want predictable compliance costs.
Choosing between Secusy and Accorian ultimately comes down to what your business actually needs from a PCI compliance relationship. If your requirement is a trusted, PCI SSC-approved partner who can deliver clean, compliant quarterly scans with clear reporting, transparent pricing, and support from people who understand the PCI DSS compliance workflow specifically, Secusy is the more purposeful choice. Its focused design means less friction, faster compliance cycles, and a support relationship that scales with your business rather than treating your scanning requirement as a line item in a larger engagement.
Accorian brings genuine value to organizations with complex, multi-framework security requirements and the internal capacity to manage a broader vendor relationship. But for the SMB owner, IT manager, or MSP partner whose primary obligation is quarterly PCI DSS vulnerability scanning, that breadth is overhead rather than advantage. In the Secusy vs Accorian ASV decision, Secusy exists precisely to remove that overhead and make PCI compliance a routine operational function rather than a recurring point of stress.
Whichever vendor you lean toward, verify current approval status directly on the PCI SSC’s official list before signing any engagement; it’s the one non-negotiable step in choosing a PCI ASV scanning vendor.
No hidden fees, no scope creep, just clear, upfront pricing for your quarterly scan.
Secusy is a PCI SSC-approved ASV focused on delivering affordable, straightforward vulnerability scanning for SMBs and growing businesses. Accorian is a broader cybersecurity firm offering a wider range of services, with ASV scanning as one component among many.
Yes. Any PCI SSC-listed ASV's passing scan satisfies the quarterly external scanning requirement under PCI DSS Requirement 11.3; the difference between vendors is service depth, transparency, pricing, and support, not compliance validity.
At minimum, quarterly, plus after any significant change to the in-scope network.
Binoy Koonammavu, is the Founder and CEO of Secusy ASV, where he helps SMBs and fintech companies meet PCI DSS scanning requirements without the complexity of enterprise-grade tools. His writing focuses on making ASV compliance straightforward for growing businesses.