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RCS is the successor to SMS, built into Google Messages on every modern Android device. For a business it means the things SMS never could: a verified sender badge, your logo and brand colour, rich cards and carousels, tappable action buttons, read receipts and typing indicators. Customers do not install anything. It is the messaging app already on their phone.
Google RCS is not available yet. Everything on this page describes the channel Tied is building, and the rates in RCS channel fees are the published pricing for it — but there is no RCS inbox to create today. Choosing Google RCS in the channel list opens the SMS setup form and asks for SMS carrier credentials, because RCS and its SMS fallback share that number.If you need Android reach now, connect SMS — that is the fallback path RCS will use anyway, so the number and the registration carry over rather than being wasted work.
3.9 billion active Android devices, with over 1.5 billion monthly RCS users. RCS also reaches iPhone on iOS 18 and later, though Apple Messages for Business remains the richer option there.

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What it takes

Verification takes 4–6 weeks. Brand verification and carrier approval are external processes run by Google and the carriers, not by Tied. Start the application immediately and launch on another channel in the meantime.
Each agent carries a one-time $800 setup ($700 RCS agent setup + $100 SMS fallback number) and $75/month ongoing ($50 RCS agent + $25 SMS fallback number). The RCS agent fees cover Google RBM Partner registration, brand verification, identity maintenance and monitoring. Every agent also gets its own SMS fallback number, used for phones that can’t receive RCS, and the number is charged at cost with no markup. See RCS channel fees.

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What you can send

Rich cards

An image, title, description and buttons in a single tappable card.

Carousels

A horizontally scrollable set of rich cards — a product list inside the thread.

Suggested replies

Tappable canned responses that keep the customer moving without typing.

Suggested actions

Open a URL, dial a number, share or view a location, or create a calendar event.

Webviews

A browser-like surface inside the conversation — checkout or configuration without leaving Messages.

Verified sender

Your logo, brand colour and a verification badge, so the customer knows it is genuinely you.

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Suggested action types

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Automatic SMS fallback

If a recipient’s device or carrier does not support RCS, Tied falls back to SMS automatically, from the agent’s own SMS fallback number. Until that number is active, a message to a phone that can’t get RCS is not sent and is marked failed. A contact who has opted out is never sent anything.
You only pay for the message that actually delivers. There is no double-billing for the fallback decision — see RCS channel fees.
This matters for how you write. A message that depends entirely on a carousel degrades badly to SMS, so put the essential information in text and let the rich surfaces enhance rather than carry it.

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Pairing it with Apple Messages

RCS will cover Android; Apple Messages for Business covers iPhone today. Pairing the two behind a single entry point is the intended end state, and is described on Channels. Between them they cover essentially every smartphone, in an app the customer already uses, with nothing to install.

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Metering

RCS meters two different ways, which is unusual and shows up on your bill:
  • Text is billed per 160-character segment
  • Rich media — images, carousels, video, interactive content — is billed per message
Both inbound and outbound are chargeable, though inbound is only billed for a freeform reply, a quick-reply tap or a shared location. Full rates: RCS channel fees.

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Next

RCS channel fees

Per-carrier rates with surcharge and platform fee shown separately.

Apple Messages for Business

The iPhone half of full coverage.

SMS and MMS

What RCS falls back to, and how it is registered.

Channel-native flow nodes

Emitting rich cards from inside a chatbot flow.