RCS business messages come in three formats: plain text, a standalone rich card, and a carousel of cards. Plain text can carry a chip list of suggestions; a rich card combines media, a title, a description and buttons; a carousel holds 2 to 10 rich cards swiped horizontally. Messages can include suggested replies and suggested actions, and carry media like images, GIFs, video, or PDFs. For billing, providers classify messages (e.g., basic/branded text vs rich media), which affects price.

RCS message formats

A text message with a chip list of suggestions below it:

{
  "contentMessage": {
    "text": "Your table is ready!",
    "suggestions": [
      { "reply": { "text": "On my way", "postbackData": "omw" } },
      { "action": { "text": "Directions", "postbackData": "dir",
        "viewLocationAction": { "latLong": { "latitude": 37.77,
          "longitude": -122.42 }, "label": "Our location" } } }
    ]
  }
}

Choosing between the three formats is mostly a question of what the recipient has to do next. Plain text with a chip list is right when the message is informational and there is one obvious next step, and it is the cheapest and most widely deliverable option. A rich card earns its cost when a single image genuinely carries information, an order, a property, a booking, so that the picture is the message rather than decoration. A carousel is for a real choice between comparable items, and it is the wrong answer for a single item dressed up to look bigger.

Media has practical constraints that shape the design. Images, GIFs, video and PDFs are all supported, but every card in a carousel must use the same media height, and mismatched assets are the single most common reason a carousel renders badly. Media is fetched from a URL you host, so the file has to stay publicly reachable for the life of the message, which is longer than most teams expect given store-and-forward delivery. Keep assets small: the render happens on a phone that may be on a weak connection, and a slow image is worse than a smaller one.

Fallback behaviour differs by format, and this is the part that has to be designed rather than discovered. A rich message does not degrade gracefully on its own. A card sent to a recipient without RCS becomes an MMS if the media can carry the meaning, or a plain SMS otherwise, and either way the buttons disappear and any call to action that lived only in a button is lost. Write the fallback text so it stands alone, with the URL spelled out, rather than letting the system flatten the card for you. How RCS falls back to SMS covers the mechanics.

Format also drives price. Providers bill basic text, branded text and rich media at different rates, so format choice is a cost decision as much as a design one, and a carousel campaign to a large list costs materially more than the same offer as text with a chip. The published US rates are on the pricing page.

RCS message formats

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