RCS Rich Card Examples: Media, Buttons, Actions

Q: RCS rich card examples

A rich card is a single RCS message combining media, a title, a description, and tap-to-act buttons. The media can be an image, GIF, video, or PDF, and at least one of media, title, or description is required. Cards render vertically or horizontally and can hold up to four suggested replies/actions. Rich cards are ideal for order confirmations, appointment reminders, and product highlights where one strong visual plus a button does the work.

A standalone rich card with an image and an action button:

{ "contentMessage": { "richCard": { "standaloneCard": {
  "cardOrientation": "VERTICAL",
  "cardContent": {
    "title": "Your order shipped!",
    "description": "Arriving Fri, Jun 12.",
    "media": { "height": "MEDIUM", "contentInfo": {
      "fileUrl": "https://shop.example/box.jpg" } },
    "suggestions": [
      { "action": { "text": "Track package", "postbackData": "trk_1043",
        "openUrlAction": { "url": "https://shop.example/track/1043" } } }
    ]
  } } } } }

Cards are stored as reusable templates in the content library, so the same card can back an order-confirmation flow and a campaign without being rebuilt.

Orientation is the first decision and it is easy to get backwards. A vertical card stacks the media above the text and gives the image the most room, which suits anything where the picture is the point, a product, a property, a shipped parcel. A horizontal card sets a smaller image beside the text and suits confirmations and reminders where the words carry the meaning and the image is a brand cue. Media height has three values, short, medium and tall, and it changes how much of the description stays visible before truncation, so tall media plus a long description reliably clips.

The four-suggestion limit is a design constraint worth taking seriously rather than filling. Cards with one clear button outperform cards with four competing ones, and the second button is usually best spent on a genuine alternative such as reschedule next to confirm, rather than on a second way to do the same thing. Buttons can mix replies and actions freely, so confirm as a reply alongside add to calendar as an action is a single well-formed card.

At least one of media, title or description is required, but a card carrying only a title is not worth the format. If you cannot justify the image, send text with a chip list instead: it is cheaper, it reaches more recipients, and it survives fallback intact.

Cards fall back to MMS or SMS depending on the media, and the buttons never survive. Any URL that a recipient needs must therefore also exist in the fallback text, because a card whose only call to action is a track button becomes a dead-end message for every recipient without RCS. The same applies to the media URL: it is fetched from your host when the message renders, not at send time, so it has to remain reachable well after the send completes.

A rich card is one of the three RCS message formats; its buttons are suggested replies and suggested actions, and several cards in one message make a carousel.

Frequently asked

Should a rich card be vertical or horizontal?

Use a vertical card when the picture is the point and a horizontal card when the words carry the meaning. A vertical card stacks the media above the text and gives the image the most room. A horizontal card sets a smaller image beside the text, which suits confirmations and reminders where the image is a brand cue.

How many buttons should you put on a rich card?

A rich card can hold up to four suggestions, but cards with one clear button outperform cards with four competing ones. The second button is usually best spent on a genuine alternative, such as reschedule next to confirm. Buttons can mix replies and actions freely on the same card.

When is the image on a rich card downloaded?

The media URL is fetched from your host when the message renders, not at send time, so it has to remain reachable well after the send completes. Separately, tall media plus a long description reliably clips, because media height changes how much of the description stays visible before truncation.

RCS rich card examples

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