SimplyRCS vs Twilio, RCS Pricing & Features (2026)

The Twilio figures below are from Twilio's US messaging pricing page, checked on 8 September 2026, which lists the per-carrier fees beside each rate.

Twilio publishes its RCS rates, which is more than most of the category does, but the published rate is not the bill. Twilio prices RCS by message class, charges more for rich media than for basic text, and then layers carrier fees, number rentals, and registration costs on top. Here is the rate card next to ours.

Rates above are Twilio's published US figures as of June 2026, verify current pricing with Twilio directly.

Why the rich media rate is the one that matters

The headline people quote is $0.0083, because that is Twilio's basic RCS rate and it matches SMS. But basic RCS is text. The reason to run RCS at all is the rich part: the carousel, the image, the branded card, the suggested-action chips. That traffic is billed at roughly $0.0220, about two and a half times the headline, so a campaign built the way RCS is meant to be built prices off the higher number, not the one in the comparison articles.

SimplyRCS splits the same traffic two ways rather than three, and both halves are lower. A rich card with buttons, chips or suggested actions but no attached media bills at the plain text rate, $0.0039, so the interactive part of RCS carries no premium at all. A message that actually carries an image, a video or a carousel bills at $0.0150, the same as an MMS, against Twilio's roughly $0.0220. Both figures are on the pricing page.

What a Twilio RCS bill is actually made of

The rate card answers "what does a message cost". It does not answer "what will the invoice say", and those are different questions. A Twilio RCS bill has four layers, and only one of them is the number people quote.

Before you send anything. Phone numbers rent monthly, per number. 10DLC brand and campaign registration carries Campaign Registry fees, and on a self-serve platform you file them yourself. Getting a verified RCS agent through onboarding carries a one-time carrier fee, which Twilio's guidelines confirm without publishing the amount. None of this is per message, and all of it is spent before the first send.

Per message, by class. This is the rate card: roughly $0.0083 for basic RCS text and $0.0220 for rich media, with rich media received at about $0.0165. The class is decided by what the message contains, so the same campaign can bill at two different rates depending on whether a given send carries a card.

On top of every message. Carrier fees are passed through rather than absorbed, and Twilio publishes them beside each rate at $0.0025 to $0.02 per message depending on carrier and message type. They are the layer that moves a forecast furthest, because they scale with volume exactly as the message rate does and are easy to leave out of the plan.

The lines you did not plan for. Failed messages bill at $0.001 each. Number rental continues whether or not you send. Neither is large on its own; both are invisible until the invoice.

One RCS message is not one SMS segment

This is the mechanic that most often makes a Twilio RCS forecast wrong, and it cuts in your favour.

SMS bills per 160-character segment, so a 400-character message is three billable segments. RCS bills per message, and one RCS message carries up to 3,072 characters. A long message that would have been three or four SMS segments is a single billable RCS message.

That means a like-for-like comparison of "RCS costs more than SMS" is often wrong for longer content: at $0.0083, basic RCS matches Twilio's SMS rate per message, while SMS is charged per segment. Where it stops helping is rich media, which is billed per message at the higher class and is the whole reason to use the channel. See the RCS character limit for the segment maths.

A worked example, 100,000 rich RCS messages

At Twilio's published rich media rate, 100,000 sends is about $2,200 in message charges before anything else. Add per-message carrier fees, the numbers you rent, the registration filings, and a share of failed messages, and the real number lands meaningfully higher. Twilio does not dispute this, it is simply how pay as you go plus pass-through works, and it is why forecasting a Twilio bill is its own job.

On SimplyRCS the same 100,000 rich media messages are $1,500 in message charges at $0.0150 each, plus one flat $250 monthly charge per RCS Agent, so $1,750 before carrier fees, which are itemised on their own line. Send those same 100,000 as rich cards without attached media and the message charge is $390 rather than $1,500, because a card with buttons bills at the plain text rate here and at Twilio's basic rate there. Both numbers are on the pricing page and the method is written out in billing transparency. For the category-wide breakdown, see RCS pricing by provider.

To put your own volume through it rather than ours, the RCS ROI calculator takes a monthly send count and returns the cost side and the engagement lift side together.

Both are REST APIs with webhooks, and both send RCS through Google's RBM programme underneath. The differences are in what surrounds the call.

• What the API includes. Twilio's is the product: you get sending, receiving and events, and build the campaign tooling, inbox and approval workflow on top. The SimplyRCS API is the same interface the app uses, so the builder, inbox, templates and analytics exist already and the API reaches into them; there is nothing to license separately, and the API and the app carry one price.
• Agent onboarding. On Twilio you create and submit the RCS sender yourself, self-serve, with no approval SLA. On SimplyRCS the agent is prepared and submitted for you, with a first verified US send targeted at two to four weeks.
• Fallback. Both fall back to SMS. On SimplyRCS it is automatic per recipient on every send and reported per channel; on Twilio it is configured on your side through a Messaging Service, and the per-channel reporting is yours to build.
• Pricing lines. Twilio bills per message plus carrier fees, number rentals, registry fees and a $0.001 charge on failed messages, with production support paid; SimplyRCS bills the published per-message rate, carrier fees at cost, and $250 a month per verified agent, with support included.

The RCS API overview has the SimplyRCS request shape and the webhook model; the public API reference has every endpoint.

You keep your numbers. SimplyRCS ports long codes, toll-free numbers, and short codes off Twilio, and re-files your 10DLC brand, your campaigns, and your verified RCS agent with the carriers on your behalf. You approve the filings; you do not assemble them.

Both platforms can run in parallel during cutover, so you move traffic when you are ready rather than on a switchover date. There is no overlap charge from us for running both.

Two things worth knowing before you plan the move:

• Short-code migrations carry carrier fees, set by the carriers and passed through at cost: $500 T-Mobile, $250 Verizon, $150 Claro. Long codes and toll-free numbers do not carry a migration fee.
• 10DLC registrations do not transfer. Brand and campaign filings are tied to the provider, so they have to be re-submitted whichever platform you move to. On SimplyRCS our team prepares and files them; on a self-serve platform that work lands on you.

The practical timeline is the same 2 to 4 weeks we target for a new verified US RCS send, because carrier approval, not the port, is the long pole. The step-by-step for leaving Twilio is in moving from Twilio without losing your numbers. Weighing other providers as well? The best Twilio alternatives for RCS compares eight on published rates, verification help and what moves with your numbers. For the three-way view with Sinch, see SimplyRCS vs Twilio vs Sinch on pricing and migration. Who files what on each platform, Twilio included, is in which RCS providers handle Google sender verification and 10DLC for you.