This article covers two separate things:
- Message types and limits: What each message type needs and what you can put in it.
- Billing: How much a message costs. This depends on what's in the message, not the message type you chose.
Message types and limits
Message types
| Message type | What it can include | What it needs |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Text, plus reply, call, and link buttons | Text |
| Enhanced | Text, plus all buttons, including Calendar and Location | A Calendar or Location button. Without one, the message is sent as Basic. |
| Rich Card | One card with a title, a description, an image or video, and buttons | An image or video |
| Carousel | 2 to 10 swipeable cards, each with an image or video, an optional title and description, and buttons | 2 to 10 cards, each with an image or video |
Enhanced messages can't include an image or video. To send media, use a Rich Card or Carousel.
Text
| What you're writing | Limit |
|---|---|
| Basic or Enhanced message | 3,072 characters |
| Rich Card or Carousel card title | 200 characters |
| Rich Card or Carousel card description | 2,000 characters |
| Follow-up message for a Suggested Reply response | 1,000 characters |
| Fallback text message | 1,000 characters |
If your message uses merge tags such as {{first_name}}, its length depends on each person's data, and the character counter shows UNKNOWN. If a filled-in message runs past 3,072 characters, Mobile Commons cuts off the end.
Buttons
| Item | Limit |
|---|---|
| Button label | 25 characters |
| Buttons per Basic or Enhanced message | 11 |
| Buttons per Rich Card | 4 |
| Buttons per Carousel card | 2 to 4, depending on the card's media height and whether it has a title or description |
| Calendar event title | 100 characters |
| Calendar event description | 500 characters |
| Phone number | A U.S. number: +1 followed by 10 digits |
Suggested Replies
- One Suggested Reply per message, with up to 5 responses.
- Each response can have up to 5 responses of its own, so replies go two levels deep.
Images and video
Carriers set these file size limits.
| Image | Video | |
|---|---|---|
| Rich Card | 2 MB | 10 MB |
| Carousel card | 1 MB | 5 MB |
Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF, and MP4.
Not supported: 3GP and VCF files.
Fallback
Every RCS broadcast includes a fallback for people whose phones can't get RCS. The fallback can be a text message (SMS) or a text message with an image (MMS).
Billing
Billing tiers
Every RCS message is billed at one of two tiers, based on what the message contains:
| Tier | What puts a message in this tier | How it's billed |
|---|---|---|
| Rich | Only text, with reply, call, or link buttons | Per 160-character segment. A longer message costs more. |
| Rich Media | Any image, video, card, or Calendar or Location button | Flat rate per message, whatever its length |
The names sound alike, but the tiers aren't message types. Rich Media doesn't need an image: an all-text message with a Calendar button is billed as Rich Media. And a long text message stays in the Rich tier no matter how long it is.
How each message type is billed
| Message type | Billing tier |
|---|---|
| Basic | Rich, per segment |
| Enhanced | Rich Media, flat rate |
| Rich Card | Rich Media, flat rate |
| Carousel | Rich Media, flat rate |
As you type, the composer shows how the message will be billed: RCS (one segment), Multi Segment RCS (with the segment count), or Enhanced Rich Media (flat rate).
How segments work
Messages in the Rich tier are billed per segment. A segment holds 160 characters of plain text.
| Message length | Segments |
|---|---|
| Up to 160 characters | 1 |
| 161 to 320 characters | 2 |
| 321 to 480 characters | 3 |
Some characters take up more room in a segment:
- Most emoji count as 4 characters.
- Accented letters, such as é or ñ, count as 2.
- Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters count as 3.
With merge tags, the segment count can differ from person to person.
Follow-up messages
When someone taps a Suggested Reply response, Mobile Commons sends the follow-up message you set up for it. Each follow-up is billed as its own message, at the tier that matches what it contains.
This means a broadcast with Suggested Replies can have more billed messages than people it went to.