Most brands aren’t doing much with mobile messaging. Some have an SMS program running in the background — shipping confirmations, the occasional promotional blast. A few are running more intentional lifecycle programs. But the majority are either underinvesting in the channel or avoiding it entirely because the setup feels complicated and the payoff feels unclear. That’s worth revisiting, because a new message type is quickly becoming the new standard, and it changes the calculus for brands that have been sitting on the sidelines.
Differentiating Between Message Types Before Diving In
When most brands talk about mobile messaging, they mean SMS. But SMS is one of three distinct message types — each with a different capability set, a different cost profile, and a different experience on the receiving end. Treating them as interchangeable is one of the more common ways mobile programs underperform.
SMS is plain text, universally supported, and the lowest cost per message. No images, no buttons, no rich media, no read data.
MMS adds support for images, audio, and video, but comes with payload size restrictions, variable carrier support, and higher cost.
RCS is the newest of the three — and the most capable. High-resolution images, carousels, suggested reply buttons, verified sender identity, and a superior chat experience closer to iMessage or WhatsApp than anything SMS has offered. It’s not a replacement for SMS so much as it’s what the channel becomes when the infrastructure finally catches up to what marketers have actually needed it to do. The rest of this blog dives into exactly that.
Here’s What RCS Is
Rich Communication Services. It’s a message type that runs inside the native messaging app your customers already have on their phones — no app download, no redirect, no extra step.
The easiest way to understand it is to think about what your customers actually see. With SMS, they get a message from a five-digit short code, plain text, maybe a link — no brand name, no logo, no real reason to trust it. With RCS, they see your brand name, logo, and a carrier-verified trust badge before they’ve read a single word. The message can carry a high-resolution image, a video, or a document directly in the thread — not behind a link. And instead of typing a reply, they can tap a pre-populated button to respond or take action in one step.
It’s closer to iMessage or WhatsApp than anything SMS has ever been — but it lives in the same native messaging app your customers already use every day. Android has supported it natively for a while. iOS 18 brought Apple into the standard, which is the moment that changed everything. The addressable audience is now the majority of your list, not a niche. And when someone’s on a device that doesn’t support it yet, Braze falls back to SMS automatically. One send. Full coverage.
How RCS is Different Than SMS
RCS is a meaningfully different capability set than SMS. Here’s what it unlocks:
Verified sender. Your brand name, logo, and a carrier-verified badge appear before the message is even opened. Recipients know it’s you. That’s the difference between a message that gets read and one that gets deleted on instinct.
Rich media. High-res images, video, documents — delivered directly in the message thread. Not a link to click. Not a redirect. The content is right there in the message.
Suggested replies. Pre-populated buttons users tap instead of type. Most customers won’t type a response to a text message — the friction isn’t worth it. Suggested replies remove that barrier entirely and turn a one-way broadcast into a data collection moment.
Read receipts. Actual delivery and read data. You can finally answer whether a 10am send outperforms a 7pm send — based on what actually happened, not what you’re assuming.
Two-way messaging with Canvas. Ask a question, branch on the response, personalize what comes next — automated end to end. It feels like a conversation. Operationally, it runs itself.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Onboarding new members: A national fitness brand was sending a plain SMS welcome sequence to new members. Open rates were untrackable, preference data was thin, and the first impression felt identical to a billing confirmation. After switching to RCS, new members received a branded welcome message with their membership details, a high-res image, and two suggested reply buttons to set their communication preferences on the spot. Every downstream message was more relevant from day one.
Post-visit survey collection: A quick-service restaurant chain was sending post-visit survey links via SMS. Completion rates were low — customers had to tap a link, wait for a page to load, and fill out a form. With RCS, the survey became three suggested reply buttons inside the message thread. Response rates improved significantly, and the data came back clean enough to actually act on.
Re-engaging lapsed users: A streaming service had a segment of lapsed subscribers receiving monthly SMS win-back messages. Response rates were flat. With RCS, the message included a short video preview of new content, a verified brand header, and a single tap-to-reactivate button. The same audience, the same offer — a meaningfully different result.
Celebrating milestone moments: A specialty retailer was sending loyalty anniversary messages over SMS. The message looked identical to a shipping notification. After moving to RCS, the anniversary moment arrived with a branded card, a personalized offer based on purchase history, and a tap-to-redeem button — a message that actually matched the moment it was marking.
What You Gain as a Marketer
What we see across mobile programs is brands investing real effort in creative, offer strategy, and timing — and then sending it all into a channel that was built for utility, not marketing. RCS is what happens when the channel finally catches up to the ambition.
A presence worth noticing. Your verified sender profile — name, logo, colors — appears before the message is even opened. For brands that have spent real budget building recognition, this is the channel where that investment finally shows up at the moment of send.
A real signal on what’s working. Read receipts mean you know if the message was actually seen, not just delivered. You’re no longer optimizing on proxies. You’re working from data that tells you what actually happened.
Two-way moments that don’t require customers to work for it. Suggested replies and tappable action buttons let customers respond with a single tap. The friction between “reply with a keyword” and “tap one of these options” is significant — and it shows up directly in response rates.
Creative that matches the channel. Carousels, branded visuals, rich media — RCS supports the kind of execution that typically lives in email or paid social. For brands already investing in creative, this isn’t extra work. It’s finally having a mobile surface that can do it justice.
Establishing a Solid Messaging and SMS Foundation
Before getting started with RCS, it’s worth making sure you’ve built something worth upgrading. The principles that make SMS work don’t change when you add a new message type — they become more important. A stronger channel amplifies what’s already there, good or bad. Here’s what you need to ensure a solid foundation that you can build upon.
Clear value in every message. Every send should earn its place in the thread. That means something useful, relevant, or timely to that specific person — not a generic blast because the calendar says it’s time to send. Customers can tell the difference immediately, and they respond accordingly.
Frequency that respects the relationship. The fastest way to erode a mobile list is to over-message. Customers who feel over-contacted don’t just ignore you — they opt out. A well-paced program builds a habit of opening. An aggressive one builds a habit of tuning out.
Consent that’s explicit and documented. Opt-in is the foundation everything else is built on. Explicit, documented consent isn’t just a compliance requirement — it’s what separates a list that engages from one that reports you as spam. Make opting in clear. Make opting out easy. Both matter.
Messages that are short, skimmable, and get to the point. Mobile is not email. Customers are scanning, not reading. If the message doesn’t land in the first line, it doesn’t land at all. Long copy, multiple asks, buried CTAs — these are email patterns that don’t belong in a text message.
A sender identity customers recognize. Knowing who a message is from — and why it’s relevant — is what turns a notification into something worth reading. Hiding behind a generic short code with no context asks customers to extend trust you haven’t established. The brands with the strongest SMS programs show up consistently, with a clear identity, and follow through on what the message promised.
Not sure where to take your SMS program? Stitch can help you create a roadmap that enables you to run true multi-channel campaigns.
What It Takes to Get Started with RCS
If you’re already running SMS in Braze, the setup is smaller than you’d expect. There’s no parallel infrastructure to build — you’re adding capability to a program that already exists.
1. Confirm RCS is in your Braze contract. It’s a purchased SKU, separate from SMS. Your Braze account team can confirm quickly whether it’s included.
2. Register a verified sender. You’ll submit your brand name, logo, and assets — Braze handles carrier registration from there. Build in 4–6 weeks for verification. It’s not fast, but it’s a one-time step.
3. Set up SMS fallback. Required for every RCS subscription group. Anyone on a non-RCS-capable device gets the SMS version automatically. Braze handles the routing — you’re not managing two separate sends.
4. Stand up opt-in collection. Explicit consent is required before any RCS send. You can capture opt-ins via your current preference center or even leverage Braze’s landing page functionality to create a unique page for users to sign up.
If you’re starting from scratch with no SMS program, plan for 8–12 weeks when you factor in legal review, opt-in design, and carrier approvals. The setup is a one-time investment. Once it’s done, the channel is permanent infrastructure — not a one-time campaign.
The most common place teams get stuck is early scoping: figuring out what’s already in the contract, what needs to be added, and what the realistic timeline looks like. If you want a clearer picture of what the lift actually looks like for your program, reach out to Stitch. We can help you map it out.
Own the Channel Before Your Competitors Do
Mobile messaging has always had more potential than most brands have used it for. The combination of a direct channel, high open rates, and real-time delivery has been there from the start — what’s been missing is the capability to match the ambition. RCS closes that gap.
For teams new to mobile messaging, this is a good moment to start. The infrastructure is more accessible than it’s ever been, the addressable audience is large enough to build a real program around, and the learning curve is shorter when you build on a solid foundation from day one rather than retrofit one later. For teams already running SMS, the path forward is straightforward — same list, same moments in the customer journey, same triggers, with a channel that can finally do more with them.
What we’ve covered in this blog is the foundation: what the message types are, what makes a mobile program worth having, and what RCS actually adds to the equation. The next step is understanding what it looks like for your specific program — your audience, your use cases, your Braze setup. That’s a shorter conversation than most teams expect. If you’re ready to have it, reach out to Stitch. We’ve helped brands stand this up before, and we can help you do it right.
