RCS vs SMS: What's the Difference?

SMS (Short Message Service) is the original text messaging protocol, largely unchanged since it launched in 1992, supporting only plain text with no rich media - but reaching essentially every mobile phone regardless of make, model, or carrier.

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is the newer standard designed to replace SMS, running over data (Wi-Fi or LTE) rather than the older cellular signaling channel it uses - which is what enables features SMS can't support: images, videos, read receipts, typing indicators, branded sender names, and interactive buttons.

For marketing specifically, RCS opens up capabilities SMS never had, including richer creative and more detailed engagement analytics like read status, which gives marketers far more visibility than SMS's largely blind delivery. The tradeoff is reach and readiness: RCS support varies by carrier and requires separate sender registration, and although Android has supported it for years and iPhones gained support starting with iOS 18 in late 2024, coverage still isn't universal the way SMS delivery is, and RCS messages typically cost more to send. Because of that gap, the common approach is to run SMS as the reliable default that reaches everyone, and layer in RCS selectively for specific campaigns where the richer format matters and the target audience's RCS support has actually been confirmed.