RCS Messaging Best Practices and General FAQs

Rich Communications Services, or RCS, is a next-generation mobile messaging service that helps brands include and send interactive, rich media, and engaging branded messages to customers, unlike SMS, which only supports text messaging. It delivers messages directly to users’ native messaging apps on their devices, ensuring a seamless, richer messaging experience.

RCS enables rich media and interactive content, including images, videos, carousels, CTAs, and suggested replies.
This leads to benefits, such as

• Increased customer engagement
• Enhanced branding and trustworthiness
• Elevated insights and analytics
• Boosted read and response rates
• Uninterrupted customer experience

RCS business messages work through RCS Agents, which are approved, verified business senders approved by Google and carriers. Here’s the step-by-step process of how RCS business messaging works for businesses:

• A business creates an RCS Agent with branding elements and use case details.

• Businesses send RCS messages via a messaging provider or platform.

• The messages are delivered through Google’s RCS infrastructure or carrier networks.

• Customers get rich, interactive messages in their device’s native messaging applications.

• If RCS is unavailable or disabled, the messages fall back to SMS.

TXTImpact facilitates this process by providing full RCS API gateway support and developer assistance, making it easier to integrate RCS into your existing workflows and infrastructure.

RCS is supported on both Android and iOS devices. On Android devices, Google Messages supports RCS, enabling Android users access and experience these enhanced features.

At the same time, Apple also supports RCS since iOS 18. This means that Apple devices with iOS 18+ versions support RCS messaging. However, the support can vary depending on the carrier and the country.

Here are the following regions that support RCS business messaging:

• United States, with carriers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon

• Canada, with carriers like Rogers, Telus, Virgin Plus, SaskTel, etc.

• Europe, with countries including France, Germany, the UK, Spain, etc.

• Asia-Pacific countries, like India, Japan, and Southeast Asian countries

• Latin America, including Brazil and Mexico

• Africa and the Middle East countries

An RCS agent gives businesses or senders a branded identity, verified by Google and carriers, and includes pre-populated information about your brand name, business information, and other crucial details.

Instead of a shortcode and long code, businesses receive messages from your business, enhancing brand trust and credibility. This also helps boost customer trust and loyalty towards your business.

To register your business for RCS business messaging:

• Choose a suitable RCS messaging provider and platform, like TXTImpact

• Submit your business information

• Create your RCS Agent profile

• Undergo carrier and Google verification

• Once approved, launch your RCS campaigns

RCS pricing varies by region, country, and provider. Typically, RCS pricing is higher than SMS, session- and conversation-based, and based on message volume and use cases.

TXTImpact, for instance, provides a transparent RCS pricing structure based on credits. All RCS plans include a one-time setup fee of $200, and RCS Rich Text messages are charged per segment, and RCS Rich Media is charged per message. Check our RCS pricing for more details.

RCS provides more advanced features and messaging capabilities than SMS and MMS. While SMS is text-only and MMS only allows you to add images and GIFs, RCS expands the capabilities and allows you to include:

• Rich media, including images, video, GIFs, and carousels

• Interactive features and elements, such as suggested actions and replies, CTAs, links, maps, and a calendar.

• Verified and branded conversations, by adding a verified sender identity to your messages.

• Advanced insights and analytics, including read receipts and typing indicators.

• Support for two-way conversations.

SMS and MMS, on the other hand, lack all these features, including branding, rich media, and analytics, which help boost engagement and conversions for your business.

You can view the RCS message statuses in the messaging insights using engagement indicators, such as delivered status, read receipts, and user interaction data, including button clicks and replies. You can find these insights available in your RCS dashboard and reporting tool.

RCS follows strict compliance standards and regulations, including explicit user opt-ins, clear opt-out mechanisms, brand and use case verification, carrier and Google consent policies, and data privacy regulations, such as regional privacy laws and GDPR.

Non-compliance with RCS messages results in agent termination, rejection, and suspension, making compliance a crucial part of RCS adoption.

Most reliable service providers, including TXTImpact, offer SMS fallback features to ensure maximum message delivery. For instance, if the recipient’s mobile device doesn’t support RCS messaging or it’s disabled, the message falls back to SMS, ensuring it's delivered without losing critical information. This way, RCS ensures maximum message reach and 100% guaranteed deliverability.

RCS supports a wide range of RCS messages and use cases, including

• Notifications and transactional alerts
• Promotional and marketing campaigns
• Appointment reminders
• Order confirmations and delivery updates
• Surveys and feedback requests
• Customer support conversations
• Product discovery and guided shopping

Yes, explicit user opt-in is mandatory for RCS messaging under applicable compliance laws and regulations. It’s important that users knowingly agree to receive messages by their choice and approval. At the same time, it’s crucial that every conversation also includes a clear opt-out option and process in line with regulatory and carrier requirements.

The RCS approval timeline varies by use case, region, and messaging provider. However, it typically ranges from 5 to 20 business days. It’s also important to note that regulated industries and complex use cases may require additional review for the approval process.

RCS enables more robust security compared to SMS:

• Verified sender identity: RCS requires businesses to verify their brand identity and send branded messages to customers. Hence, every RCS message is sent from a verified RCS Agent, and not a random phone number. This allows brands to include their business name and logo in the messages, enhancing business trust and credibility.

• Encrypted data in transit: RCS messages are sent and transmitted over an encrypted TLS/HTTPS connection between the business and its RCS service provider, the Google/carrier infrastructure and the provider, and the infrastructure and the end user, protecting messages from interception when in transit.

• Strong anti-spam and abuse control: To fight spam and spoofing risks, businesses must get their use cases and messaging templates pre-approved. Businesses must obtain pre-approval for the messaging categories, content types, and opt-in and opt-out mechanisms. Business messages that deviate from the desired and approved behavior can be blocked immediately. At the same time, the RCS platform continuously monitors message volume spikes, engagement patterns, and compliant and opt-out rates to prevent spam and other security risks.

• User consent: RCS requires and enforces explicit opt-in before businesses send messages. This is to add a security layer that helps prevent unsolicited messaging, spam-driven attack vectors, and scale abuse. At the same time, it’s crucial to enforce persistent opt-out using buttons, STOP keywords, or by blocking the agent.

• Phishing and fraud mitigation: RCS reduces fraud and phishing risks through engaging, interactive features, such as branded UI elements that are difficult to fake, a verified branded identity, button-based CTAs instead of raw links, and pre-approved and restricted URLs. While this does not eliminate phishing, it makes fraud detection and mitigation easier.

• Data privacy and regulatory alignment: RCS Business Messaging aligns with major compliance rules and regulations, including GDPR, CCPA/CRPA, and regional telecom regulations. These regulations include consent management, user rights enforcement, data minimization, and audit trails.

No, if the user’s device doesn’t have RCS enabled, read and delivery receipts won’t work. Analytics, such as read receipts, delivery receipts, interaction analytics, and typing indicators, don’t work if RCS isn't enabled on the user’s device. Instead, the message falls back to SMS/MMS to ensure guaranteed delivery.

Here are some effective tips for creating an RCS messaging strategy for a successful messaging campaign:

• Understand your audience to leverage segmentation and send targeted and personalized messages.

• Create engaging and interactive messages with rich media elements and interactive CTAs.

• Analyze past campaign performance metrics to optimize and align your marketing campaigns with the success metrics.

• Prioritize customer experience by ensuring an intuitive, user-friendly, and seamless customer support experience.

• Ensure security and compliance with federal marketing rules and regulations, as well as other data privacy laws, to prevent legal fees and disputes.

Businesses send SMS and MMS messages via short codes, toll-free mobile numbers, or long codes, which don’t explicitly convey business identity, making customers suspicious about the message's credibility. RCS, on the other hand, allows you to add a verified sender identity, enhancing brand credibility and customer trust.

Additionally, features like clear opt-ins, easy opt-outs, and transparent action buttons make conversations feel safe and respectful for customers.

Often, when businesses test RCS messages, some carriers include a separate message or a warning that informs recipients that the message isn’t real and is for testing purposes only.

The warning message that is displayed is, “The following RCS business message is not real and is for testing purposes only. Please disregard any instructions or content within this message. Remember, always exercise caution while sharing personal information.”

This message often appears when you send messages to an approved test device before the RCS Sender approves you, and businesses are often not charged for these test messages.

Usually, no. You don’t require a new TCPA consent when switching from SMS to RCS, as the existing consent applies to both SMS and RCS. This is because TCPA consent governs the scope of consent and the message content, not the actual messaging protocol itself. Thus, irrespective of the messaging protocol (SMS or RCS), if you have valid text message consent and the message purpose, brand, and frequency remain unchanged, RCS is covered under the existing consent.

Yes, there can be some throughput restrictions on RCS, with the default limit being 100 messages per second. However, the restrictions vary depending on the messaging provider, carrier, and region. For instance, at TXTImpact, if you want to send additional RCS messages, you can increase the limit by purchasing additional credits. Check our RCS pricing page for more details.

Yes, RCS supports user-initiated messages with two-way messaging, allowing customers to start the user-end conversation by clicking on “Chat,” using suggested actions and replies, scanning QR codes, using deep links, or replying to the previous RCS message.