Spotted: 5 Brands using RCS

If you haven’t yet seen branded RCS messages in the wild, it’s probably because very few brands are actually experimenting with RCS right now. For example, of the 1000 brands I follow at Tiny Texts, only about five brands (linked below) are sending RCS messages with any consistency. Le needle in le haystack.

In this newsletter I will share:

And if you have no idea what RCS is, read this first.

The Promise vs The Reality

When we first heard about RCS I naively thought it would help me reduce my bill. I thought if RCS is better at handling rich media and long blocks of text, both of which are so costly to send on SMS, switching to RCS should save me some money.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case. In the second half of 2025, when messaging providers rolled out RCS capabilities (Klaviyo is offering a private paid beta, Attentive offers access to a beta for customers who apply, and Airship embedded RCS natively into its platform), they all mostly kept RCS pricing on par with SMS and MMS.

I asked the folks at Airship about this and Anthony Saia, Director of Product, said, “The industry is moving toward pricing parity with SMS and MMS, meaning businesses can treat RCS as an upgrade in capability not cost. We’ve seen market signals that carriers and aggregators want to keep RCS pricing in line with existing SMS and MMS rates, to drive brand adoption of RCS without cannibalizing the SMS and MMS channels.”

Pricing aside, there are many other compelling benefits to RCS like more interactivity, clickable carousels, clear call-to-action buttons to drive conversions, AI-enabled chats, and even secure payment.

But.. the consumer experience varies greatly from one device to another. After comparing across my various devices, I can attest that Android users get the best RCS experience and the iOS RCS experience ranges from meh to mediocre.

Clickable carousels from Omaha Steaks- great on Android, less great on iOS

Android

iOS 26.2

Saks RCS messages look good on iOS 18, less good on iOS 26

On iPhone, the RCS experience actually seems to have gotten worse with the release of iOS 26. I don’t have specifics to explain why, I can only show you examples of the before and after. On iOS 18, I was seeing larger carousels and media cards. On iOS 26, the media is gone.

iOS 18.1

iOS 26.2

Simple applications of RCS

Because iOS dominates here, most US customers cannot enjoy the rich media experience that RCS offers, and this might explain why many brands are keeping their RCS experiments sparse and simple. Most often I see limited interactivity, CTA buttons and a high-res image here and there.

Brands to subscribe to if you want to see RCS yourself

It’s worth signing up for these brands below so that you can see the full RCS experience for yourself, especially the branded sender profile. The check-marked profile does help create a more credible appearance for the sender, and help you stand out in the inbox.

Here are 5 brands I can confidently say are sending RCS messages right now:

Helpful links if you are ready to experiment

Not seeing any RCS messages on your device?

A few months ago I called Mint for help, thinking I was not receiving RCS messages either. We checked the settings and then the Mint CSR pointed out how to identify RCS messages in my inbox. If you see a branded sender profile and “RCS” in the typing field you are successfully receiving RCS messages!

On iOS:

On Android:

Thanks for reading! If your brand is experimenting with RCS please let me know how it is going.

In our next newsletter we’ll look at SMS sign up units and how one luxury brand increased conversion with a few simple language changes, so make sure you’re subscribed. And visit us at tinytexts.co to see what hundreds of brands are texting in real time.