What is RCS messaging?

RCS — Rich Communication Services — is the standard that turns the phone's own messaging app into something closer to a chat app. For marketers it means pictures, buttons and branded senders inside the normal inbox, without asking anyone to install anything.

What RCS can do that SMS cannot

• Images, video and carousels — show the product instead of describing it in 160 characters.
• Suggested replies and buttons — "Book a visit", "See the offer", "Call us" — one tap instead of typing.
• A verified sender with your logo and name, which looks far more trustworthy than an unknown number.
• Read receipts and typing indicators, so you see more than "delivered".
• Longer messages without being split into several SMS.

Which phones support it

RCS is built into Google Messages, the default messaging app on most Android phones. Apple added RCS to iPhones with iOS 18 in 2024, where the carrier supports it. Whether a given number can receive RCS therefore depends on the phone, the app and the network — which is exactly what an RCS-ready list checks for you. When a phone cannot receive RCS, many sending platforms fall back to plain SMS, and your rich message arrives as text only.

What a business needs to send RCS

Business RCS (often called RBM, RCS Business Messaging) goes through a messaging provider rather than a normal phone. Expect to:

1. Choose a provider that offers RCS for the country you target.
2. Register your brand as a sender ("agent") — name, logo, colours, contact details — and go through the brand verification the provider and the networks ask for.
3. Design the message: a card or carousel, short text, two or three buttons.
4. Upload your list and send — with a clear opt-out, the same as for SMS.

Designing a rich message that works

• One card, one idea. A carousel is great for three products; for a single offer, one card with one image is clearer.
• Let the image do the talking — the product, the place, the result — and keep the text to two or three short lines.
• Two or three buttons, no more, each with a clear verb: "See prices", "Book", "Call us".
• Keep an opt-out as a button or a line ("Reply STOP"), exactly as for SMS.
• Write a plain-text version too for the phones that fall back to SMS.

Measuring it

RCS gives you more than SMS ever could: delivered, read, which button was tapped, and replies. Compare read rate and button taps between two versions of the same message on small batches before sending the big one — and compare against an SMS group if you are deciding whether RCS is worth it for your offer.

When an RCS-ready list is worth it

If your campaign is designed as a rich message — a product carousel, a booking button, a coupon card — every number that cannot show it is a wasted send, or a downgraded one. Filtering to RCS-ready numbers keeps your budget on phones that will display the message as you built it. If your message is plain text anyway, a normal list does the job.

RCS-ready lists are available for every country we serve — the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy, Portugal and Austria — and can be combined with a single network. The consent rules for marketing messages are the same as for SMS; see our rules guide.