What is RCS

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is a messaging channel that arrives straight to the phone's default messaging app, with nothing for the contact to install. Unlike SMS, messages are sent from a verified brand — with your name, your logo and your color — and can carry images, cards, buttons and quick replies so the contact acts or replies with a single tap.

And when a contact can't receive RCS, the message can be sent by SMS as a backup, as long as fallback is enabled. In Instasent you use RCS for campaigns, notifications, confirmations and customer care, and you compose it in the same editor as any other campaign (see Creating a campaign).

In short: a more visual, interactive and recognizable experience than SMS, without giving up coverage.

Your verified brand, not a number

RCS messages arrive from a verified agent: your logo, your brand color, your name and your description appear at the top of the conversation, alongside your contact links. To whoever receives it, it reads as the profile of a trusted business inside their messaging app — not an unknown number — and that changes how the message is received before it's even read. Every field of that identity — name, logo, banner, color — is detailed in Your RCS agent profile; how it's registered and verified, in RCS senders & verification.

What you can send

Currently, an RCS campaign in Instasent sends text with Quick actions:

• Text — up to 3072 characters (well beyond an SMS), with the same personalization and the same unsubscribe link you already use.
• Quick actions — quick-reply buttons below the message, up to 4 per send. We cover them just below.

Quick actions

Quick actions are quick-reply buttons — RCS suggestion chips — that appear below the message. The contact taps an option, like "Yes", "View map" or "Call", and moves forward without typing anything: the conversation stops being a one-way notice and becomes something you can interact with.

In the campaign composer you add them from the Add action button (up to 4 per message). There are four types:

• Quick reply — sends the button's text back as a reply.
• URL link — opens a link in the browser.
• Call — starts a call to the number you set.
• Unsubscribe — enables opt-out; Instasent adds the link automatically.

Each button's text (Button text) is short: up to 25 characters.

Limits

Element	Limit
Text message	3072 characters
Quick actions per message	0 to 4
Button text	25 characters
Card title (coming soon)	200 characters
Card description (coming soon)	2000 characters
Buttons per card (coming soon)	4
Cards in a carousel (coming soon)	2 to 5

Delivery and read receipts

RCS is a two-way channel: you know when a message is delivered to the device and when it's read, with the channel's native read receipts. Those states, together with each send's delivery and open rate, show up in the campaign results.

When a contact can't receive RCS

Not every phone can receive RCS yet. When one can't, Instasent delivers your message as an SMS automatically, so no one is left without it — this is what we call SMS Fallback. To set up the sender your RCS is sent from, continue to RCS senders & verification.