A rate card is transparent when the invoice can be predicted from it. That is a higher bar than publishing a number, because the per-message rate is usually the smallest of the surprises. The scorecard below marks each provider on the five layers of a US messaging bill, using only what each one has put in writing, and says so where a number is missing rather than guessing one. Figures were verified in September 2026 against each vendor's published pricing or documentation; quote-priced vendors change terms by contract, so confirm with them directly.
What transparent pricing has to include
Five things decide what a US RCS programme costs. A provider is transparent to the extent it publishes all five.
- Per-message rates, by class. The text rate and the media rate separately, whether an interactive card with buttons bills as text or as media, and whether text bills per message or per 160-character segment. A long message that is one RCS message can be three SMS segments.
- Carrier fees. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and US Cellular each levy a per-message surcharge on business traffic. The question is whether the provider publishes them, passes them through at cost on their own line, or blends them into a headline rate.
- Setup and sender fees. Agent or sender activation, annual vetting, and what it costs to change a sender profile you already paid to create.
- Numbers and registry fees. Monthly number rental, 10DLC brand and campaign fees from The Campaign Registry, and who files them.
- The penalty lines. Failed-message charges, per-interaction processing fees, support tiers and separately licensed AI products.
The scorecard
| Provider | Per-message RCS rates | Carrier fees | Setup and sender fees | Numbers and registry | Penalty lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SimplyRCS | Published: $0.0039 text or card, $0.0150 media | Published per carrier, at cost, own invoice line | Published: $250 install, $200/yr Aegis review, $500 T-Mobile activation, $0 to change | Published: $0.50/mo per number, registry fees listed | None; no failed-message fee, support and bots included |
| Telnyx | Published: $0.0065 per segment text, $0.016 media | Passed through, vary by carrier | No platform fee; self-serve verification | Pay as you go; you file 10DLC | Documented: $0.001/MB over 5 MB on T-Mobile |
| Plivo | Published: $0.0077 per segment text, $0.0180 media | Passed through, separate per-carrier surcharge tables | Plans from about $25/mo; self-serve verification | Pay as you go; you file 10DLC | Not published |
| Twilio | Published: ~$0.0083 basic, ~$0.0220 media sent, ~$0.0165 received | Passed through; reported at 36 to 60% surcharges, not on the rate card | Onboarding reported around $700; you file registration | Monthly rental per number; you file 10DLC | $0.001 per failed message; premium support paid |
| Vonage | Model documented (Basic, Rich, Conversation), US rates not published | Passed through on SMS; RCS treatment not stated | Not published | US SMS about $0.0068 plus carrier fees | Not published |
| Bandwidth | Not published; negotiated per contract | Fee structure documented, rates by contract | Contract | Contract | Documented: $0.001/MB over 5 MB on T-Mobile |
| Sinch | Not published; quoted | Inside the quote | Published: up to $500 activation, ~$75 per profile change | Contract | Engage plans ~$49 to $249/mo; Chatlayer AI bot ~$499/mo extra |
| Infobip | Not published; quoted | Not stated beyond "operator agreements set the base cost" | Enterprise onboarding | Contract | Moments per-interaction fee reported around $0.07 |
| Bird | Not published; RCS absent from the public pricing table | Not stated | Plan tiers | Plan tiers | Vendor fees, partly published |
Three tiers fall out of that table. SimplyRCS, Telnyx and Plivo publish rate cards, and SimplyRCS also publishes the carrier fees and the setup fees around them. Twilio, Vonage and Bandwidth publish part of the picture: rates without surcharges, a billing model without rates, or a fee structure without a price. Sinch, Infobip and Bird price by quote, so the only way to compare them is to get the quote first.
Why the per-message rate is the least of it
On a real invoice the per-message line is often not the largest one. On the billing transparency page, the illustrative 50,000-message month shows $195 in message charges next to $210 in carrier pass-through surcharges, and that is with the surcharges at cost. A provider that marks those fees up, or folds them into a blended rate, can quote a lower headline number and deliver a higher total, and there is no way to tell from the outside unless the fees are published.
The same is true of message classes. Twilio's $0.0083 is the rate for basic RCS, which is text. The rich cards, carousels and suggested actions that are the reason to use RCS bill at the rich class, about $0.0220. On SimplyRCS an interactive card with buttons and no attached media bills at the text rate, so the class boundary sits in a different place and the published rate you compare has to be the one for the format you will actually send. How much does RCS cost walks through each component.
Transparent is not the same as cheapest
The three published rate cards are shaped differently, and honesty about that is part of being transparent. SimplyRCS charges a flat $250 a month per verified RCS agent and Telnyx and Plivo charge no platform fee, so at low volume their pay-as-you-go totals are lower. On rich text the SimplyRCS fee is earned back at roughly 96,000 messages a month against Telnyx and roughly 65,800 against Plivo; on rich media the gap is a tenth of a cent against Telnyx, so the fee takes far longer to earn back there. Below those volumes, Telnyx or Plivo is the cheaper line item and we say so on SimplyRCS vs Telnyx and SimplyRCS vs Plivo. Above them, and on interactive cards, which bill per segment there and at the text rate here, the per-message gap dominates.
What the flat fee buys is the part the rate cards leave out: the campaign builder, the shared inbox, the bot builder, human support, and the team that files your carrier registrations. On a developer-first platform that tooling is yours to build and maintain, and it appears on nobody's rate card.
How to check a quote you cannot see
If the provider you are evaluating is one of the quoting six, the quote becomes comparable to a published rate card only when it answers the same five questions. Ask for the text rate and the media rate separately, and whether text bills per segment or per message. Ask whether US carrier surcharges are passed through at cost or marked up, whether they appear on their own invoice line, and which carriers' fees the quoted number includes. Ask for the activation fee, the annual vetting fee and the cost to change a sender profile. Ask what a number costs a month and who files 10DLC. And ask what is billed on a failed message, on a support ticket, and on the AI product. A quote that answers all of them can be compared. One that does not is a single number you cannot decompose. Questions to ask an RCS vendor has the full list.
Where SimplyRCS sits
SimplyRCS publishes every layer on the pricing page: $0.0039 per SMS, RCS text or interactive card, $0.0150 per MMS or RCS message with media, the same rate inbound and outbound; the per-carrier surcharge table at cost; $250 a month per verified RCS agent with the app, API, bots, inbox, analytics and human support included; the $250 agent install, $200 a year Aegis sender review and $500 T-Mobile activation itemised up front; numbers from $0.50 a month; the Campaign Registry fee schedule; and nothing to change a sender profile. Taxes and surcharges are estimated before checkout and reconciled on the invoice, and the billing transparency page shows a sample bill line by line. That is the standard we would hold any provider to, including us.
- Three providers publish a full US RCS rate card: SimplyRCS ($0.0039 / $0.0150), Telnyx ($0.0065 per segment / $0.016) and Plivo ($0.0077 per segment / $0.0180).
- Twilio publishes per-message rates (~$0.0083 basic, ~$0.0220 media) but not the carrier surcharges, reported at 36 to 60 percent, that land on top.
- Vonage documents its billing model without US rates; Bandwidth documents its fee structure without rates; Sinch, Infobip and Bird quote.
- Carrier surcharges can outweigh the message charges on an invoice; whether they are published and passed through at cost is the biggest single transparency test.
- Transparent is not cheapest: below roughly 66,000 to 96,000 rich text messages a month, Plivo or Telnyx pay-as-you-go totals are lower than SimplyRCS's rate plus flat agent fee.
- A quote is comparable to a rate card only when it states rates by class, carrier fee treatment, setup and sender fees, number and registry costs, and penalty lines.