Testing and defence led by a published security researcher with five CVEs, including a CVSS 9.1 Mirai botnet kill-switch.
All security →SOC 2, ISO, CPCSC, and the Canadian privacy stack, run end to end with an independent auditor.
All frameworks →Original research, free tools, and plain-language guides on security and compliance, from a published security researcher.
Read the blog →PCI DSS is a global card-brand standard, so it applies to Canadian startups exactly as it does anywhere else: the moment you store, process, or transmit cardholder data, regardless of country.
See also the PCI DSS overview.
Where PCI DSS fits into a Canadian company’s compliance picture, and where Canadian regulators change the calculus.
Your Canadian acquiring bank and processor enforce PCI DSS. The requirements and version (v4.0.1) are identical to the US.
Using Canadian and global compliant processors keeps most card data out of your systems.
If you sell into the US, the same PCI validation covers those transactions.
PCI DSS is uniform across North America, so a Canadian startup selling into the US does not need a separate scheme. One validation, whether a SAQ or a QSA audit, covers card data on both sides of the border.
Pair PCI DSS with SOC 2 for buyer trust, and with PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25 for the personal data that rides alongside payments.
traztech is a Toronto (Bay St) security and compliance firm, led by a published security researcher, delivering to startups across Canada and the US.
Reading about a framework only gets you so far. Our free compliance workspace takes you through all 143 requirements of PCI DSS v4.0.1, one at a time, each explained in plain English with what an auditor will want to see, plus somewhere to attach the evidence and a readiness score that moves as you close gaps. No credit card, no trial clock, nothing locked.
The workspace is free and stays free. Traztech makes money when someone wants help closing the gaps it finds, not from the tool.
The control library, the evidence, the policies and the readiness score all have to live somewhere. That is normally quoted as an annual subscription. Ours is free, and it is the same workspace we run engagements in.
| traztech Workspace | Other GRC platforms | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence cost | $0. Free forever, no card, no paid tier | $7,500 to $50,000 a year, on an annual contract |
| Control library, evidence register, policy templates, risk register, vendor questionnaires, readiness scoring | Included | Included |
| What it costs inside an engagement with us | $0. You need a workspace either way | Unchanged. The subscription sits on top of the fee |
| What it does to your audit quote | $11,000 off a five-figure quote on one engagement, for a documented readiness position | Nothing. The audit firm prices your readiness, not your tooling |
Pricing in the right column is what compliance automation platforms are publicly reported to charge; none of them publish a number, so treat it as a range rather than a quote. The $11,000 came off the audit firm's own number once the readiness position was documented (the engagement). Where a paid platform is the better buy, and the fuller comparison, is on the Workspace page.
No. It is a global card-brand standard, so the v4.0.1 requirements are identical. Your Canadian acquirer and processor enforce it the same way US ones do.
Pair PCI DSS with SOC 2 for buyer trust, and with PIPEDA and Quebec Law 25 for the personal data that rides alongside payments.
Yes. traztech is a Toronto-based security and compliance consultancy serving startups across Canada and the US, led by a published security researcher. We run PCI DSS engagements end to end.
Book a free discovery call. We will tell you whether PCI DSS fits, what it would take, and roughly what it would cost.
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Track record
We are deliberately not a large firm, and we would rather show you the work than a wall of logos. Here is what is behind the advice.
Five published CVEs. CVE-2024-45163 (CVSS 9.1) is a flaw in the Mirai botnet itself, which gave defenders a way to shut down attacker infrastructure. CVE-2026-42626 takes HP ENVY 5000 printers offline from any unauthenticated device on the same network.
The printer is the one that matters on a compliance page: an asset nobody counts as a computer, on a flat network, downed by a device that never had to log in. Auditors ask how controls fail. We have found out first-hand.
At Humera, a venture-backed US security company, Jacob built the compliance programme in-house from nothing: no report, no policies, no documented controls. It ended in a Type II attestation across 76 controls with zero exceptions, on a team of 15.
The platform held 99.9% uptime throughout, which is the part most readiness projects get wrong: controls are easy to design and hard to retrofit onto a system people already depend on.
For a Waterloo data centre operator we ran SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 together rather than one after the other, across a production campus, an AI compute platform and a self-hosted collaboration stack. Scoped so further Ontario and Quebec sites enter as they reach production. Findings delivered and remediated.
For an Ontario medtech company putting an AI clinical assistant in front of practitioners, we ran the gap analysis and built the evidence programme behind their SOC 2.
Before you go
I send a few short notes on PCI DSS: what it actually asks for, what it costs, and the parts teams usually get wrong. Unsubscribe in one click, and replies reach me directly.
From Jacob Masse, founder of traztech. No spam, unsubscribe in one click.