What is RCS messaging?

When it comes to types of phone messaging, you may have heard of SMS and MMS…but what about RCS? Short for Rich Communications Services, RCS lets you send high-res photos and videos, enables read receipts and allows you to add and remove people from your group chat, even if one of you uses iPhone and one of you uses an Android phone. That’s right: it’s basically world peace for green and blue bubbles. 

Below, we’ll go into everything else you need to know about RCS.

What is an RCS message?

As mentioned above, Rich Communication Services is a type of phone messaging that lets you send high-res, multimedia messages and share files without significant compression (that’s right, it’s Spanx-free file sharing). Also, you can enable read receipts on your messages AND it allows for typing indicators—basically, it’s perfect for nosy people. Until fairly recently, RCS messaging was only available for Android phones; but as of iOS 18, it’s now available for iPhones. Think of RCS as the next giant leap in texting technology, that offers both sender and receiver a significant upgrade in terms of features and user experience over SMS and MMS when it’s enabled. 

How does RCS messaging work? 

RCS is sent via either mobile data or Wi-Fi. To get RCS messages, both you and the person you’re texting will have to enable RCS on your respective phones. If not, everything will look like a regular old SMS or MMS messages.

To enable RCS on iPhone, you’ll need to have iOS 18 installed, then:

1. Tap Settings 
2. Select Apps 
3. Open Messages 
4. Tap RCS Messaging and toggle it on 

To enable RCS on an Android phone:

1. Open Google Messages
2. Tap your profile picture or icon and then Messages settings
3. Tap RCS chats
4. Turn RCS chats on

RCS features and benefits 

There are a ton of benefits to using RCS messaging for both Android and iPhone users, including the following:

• Send and receive high-res photos and videos
• Send and receive GIFs (cat or otherwise)
• Use text reactions (for those “!!” moments)
• Add and remove people from your group chat (peace out old coworker group chats) 
• Extra secure texting thanks to end-to-end encryption
• Enable typing indicators 
• Turn on read receipts
• Geolocation sharing
• And for the oversharers, messages aren’t limited to 160 characters as with SMS; in fact, you can send over 3000 characters via one RCS message. It’s just one of the differences of RCS vs. SMS.

Does RCS cost money? 

When you use RCS, messages are sent over Wi-Fi and mobile data. As long as you’re on Wi-Fi, whether it’s your own or your local coffee shop’s, there should be no cost to send and receive texts, photos or cat GIFs using RCS. On the other hand, if you use mobile data, the cost will be based on your plan. 

And that’s the 411 on RCS

Now you know all about this Ridiculously Cool Service. Did you know Mint Mobile also offers RCS for iPhone and Android? Learn all about RCS on Mint or tap the button below to learn more about our plans in general. Because we welcome everyone to the movemint—whether you’re a green or blue bubble.