We obtain an improved version of the pointwise sparse domination principle established by the first author in [19]. This allows us to determine nearly minimal assumptions on a singular integral operator T for which it admits a sparse domination.where f p p,Q = 1 |Q| Q |f | p , and S is a sparse family of cubes of R n . Recall that the family of cubes S is called η-sparse, 0 < η ≤ 1, if for every cube Q ∈ S, there exists a measurable set E Q ⊂ Q such that |E Q | ≥ η|Q|, and the sets {E Q } Q∈S are pairwise disjoint.Localization and sparseness are two main ingredients which make sparse bounds especially effective in quantitative weighted norm inequalities.The literature about sparse bounds is too extensive to be given here in more or less adequate form. We mention only that sparse bounds for Calderón-Zygmund operators can be found in [7,15,16,18,19,20]. Also, there are several general sparse domination principles [5,6,8,19].In [19], a sparse domination principle was obtained in terms of the grand maximal truncated operatordefined for a given operator T .2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 42B20, 42B25.