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Last week I pointed out Apple’s gaps—the flaws hidden inside a spectacularly successful product. But fairness demands that I bring the same scrutiny to my own thinking. Where could I be wrong? It’s the one question every strategist needs to ask—regularly and with discipline.
It should not be a surprise that I’m an RCS optimist. I’ve been one for more than a decade. I see it as the biggest reset to messaging since SMS. I believe RCS will rival SMS in reach and in depth of engagement. I also believe it is the strongest margin-expanding lever this industry has.
I advise product teams to become RCS propulsion engines. Don’t get hung up on the complexity of the medium, the process, or the price. Just start building today. As technology resets go, this one is coming fast, and the teams that gain speed quickly will ride the wave. Those who don’t will get washed away.
But what if the wave never breaks? What if the pricing proves too burdensome, the product too complex, and the reach too narrow to matter? What if WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat (ABC), driven by ambitious leadership, freed from ecosystem friction, make reach a non-issue?
Three Flashes of Promise
Product, reach, and consumer demand are the basis for my optimism. I’ve discussed them at length in the past, but I’ll share them here briefly.
First, RCS is simply better: It can act as both the messaging layer and the app (just like WhatsApp and ABC).
Second, with Apple’s participation, ubiquity is finally possible.
And most importantly, once the consumer sees it working, they wouldn’t want to go back. Just ask anyone texting between Android and iOS and the surprise of getting delivered/read notifications or the ability to tap to thumbs up.
There’s also plenty of market proof.
Product teams across CPaaS, messaging, martech, and identity platforms are pouring millions into building robust, expressive RCS tools. Their go-to-market counterparts are investing just as much in customer education and live showcases. Most importantly, the early adopters are already seeing standout results.
Three Smoke Signals of Risk
Pricing
There’s real sticker shock around transactional RCS. And without session-based pricing, no one can credibly offer outcome-based pricing. That’s a problem.
Outcome-based pricing is the current push across the software stack, a response to the bad habits that subscription models created over the last decade. Session pricing promised to connect cost to actual value. That promise has been delayed.
Instead, we have vetting fees, carrier surcharges, and higher overall costs. To be clear, the price difference reflects real work. The right to use a brand logo and header image must be checked. It builds trust, and verifying trust costs money.
Even a message that came with a caller ID is now hidden behind a brand. Every URL now has a call-to-action button.
Take a real survey message from Verizon. Where the number and the URL used to be visible, the phone number is hidden behind a logo, the URL tucked behind a button. Who gets to use the Verizon logo becomes critically important. Branding becomes the protected prize.
Carriers have also spent heavily on RCS software and infrastructure. It is a ground-up rewrite of the messaging stack. It’s a deep product, and deeper products cost more.
But for a Fortune 500 brand already satisfied with SMS, the pitch doesn’t land. Pay more for a powerful catamaran when the schooner’s getting the job done? Why?
Aggregators try to ease the friction by swapping RCS in on the back end. But that’s not solving the issue; it’s just burying it.
Complexity
There’s an elegant simplicity to how SMS works. Once you know what you want to say, getting the message out isn’t complicated.
RCS demands more. It requires a deeper grasp of engagement design, interaction flows, and behavioral nuance (see other posts in this series). The challenge isn’t cramming a message into 160 characters or hoping an image format gets delivered; it’s deciding whether to use a card or a carousel. And if it’s a carousel, how many? Three, five, or eight? Should the cards be half-length, full-length, or compact? How big should the images be? What text shows up alongside them? You get the idea.
For companies used to voice or SMS, that learning curve feels steep. And when you pair that complexity with pricing doubts, the impulse is to wait. And that brings me to my next point: reach.
Apple
Reach, or more specifically, device support, was the deal breaker for RCS. Apple solved it. Its support is what made RCS viable. And yet, its support seems to be the minimally required kind (I didn’t say I was done critiquing Apple).
Design decisions that would never fly in ABC are somehow acceptable in their implementation of RCS. The card animation is slick on iOS but confusing—especially when the buttons don’t change but the text inside them does. If ABC shipped that behavior, I doubt it would have made it past QA.
And then there’s the unknown sender problem. It’s no secret that iOS 26 will suppress alerts for text messages. But multiple sources confirm that first-time RCS agents will be sent to the unknown folder while ABC chat messages land in the known folder by default.
In one move, Apple could turn RCS into just another folder from which brands have to claw their way out. Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away.
The Fourth Risk
SMS’s reach made up for its shoddy experience. But now that RCS is here, it’s not just an upgrade to SMS; it’s in direct competition with other OTTs, especially WhatsApp.
Additionally, if you listen to Mark Zuckerberg, you’d think WhatsApp is going to save the company—right after AI. Yet, text messaging, let alone RCS, barely registers on US operator earnings calls. On the other hand, Zuck describes WhatsApp Business as one of the pillars of Meta’s growth. That should worry everyone.
How Risks Could Conspire
If RCS fails, it won’t be one thing; it’ll be all the things combined with the proverbial straw. That straw might be competitive pressure from other OTTs.
Here’s how it plays out in a CMO review meeting:
CMO: “So, why are we here?”
Growth: “We’re looking to deploy RCS in our SMS channel.”
CMO: “What’s the cost?”
Growth: “2–3x SMS.”
CMO: “What?”
(beat)
CMO to Product: “How good is RCS?”
Product: “It’s good. Does a lot of what WhatsApp does, and it’s supported on all platforms. But it’s new development . . . it’ll take time to implement.”
CMO: “Why?”
Product: “It’s a different medium.”
CMO to BI: “How’s ROI on SMS?”
BI: “Acceptable”
CMO: “So we’re replacing something that works, with something twice as expensive, just as complex, and already covered by WhatsApp?”
(beat)
“OK. Let’s talk about it next quarter. We’ve got enough going on. Now . . . how’s Black Friday planning going?”
Feedback’s Gift to Strategy
A strategy is only as good as the criticisms it can withstand. Without structured feedback, thinking a strategy is sound is like expecting to win the Monaco Grand Prix by doing donuts at the starting line. Flashy but pointless.
To improve, you have to get out on the track. Push hard enough to hear the engine sputter, feel the tires slip, and let others watch the run. The problems you don’t notice are usually the ones that matter most.
It’s also easy to PowerPoint your way into any narrative you want.
In the abstract, strategy skids into extremes. Either it leans into Pollyannaish optimism—where nothing can go wrong and life looks like a Coca-Cola ad—or it veers toward apocalyptic doomerism straight out of The Terminator or The Matrix.
Both outcomes are possible. But are they probable? Feedback exercises like this (and I look forward to your feedback) are how we ground strategy.
What Next
Strategy is more intuition than math. The job of analysis is to inform intuition, not replace it. And if the goal is to decide, what would you change? This is where having spirited optimism is helpful.
Over time, RCS will replace SMS. As customers get used to doing via “text messaging” what they’ve been able to do on iMessage, WhatsApp, and Viber for years, it will click. In that world, an A2P message that shows up as simple SMS will be a subpar experience. People will want their brands to use better channels.
And then there’s the wow effect. I’ve yet to see anyone walk away from an RCS demo unimpressed. Even in my own newsletter experiment, readers tell me they prefer it to email. They are surprised it could do all that—that it’s more convenient, more fun. That spark is real.
But while a cult-like belief in the product is necessary to win, it will only go so far. You have to be wide-eyed about the risks and address them with courage, rigor, and patience.
Here’s an approach:
- Pricing: Start with value, not cost. Perhaps instead of talking about it as an SMS replacement, speak to new user experiences that are build-once and universally deployable.
- Complexity: Pick specific use cases to frame adoption. Don’t show brands a DIY toolset; figure out what they want to build, and then show them how.
- Reach: The P2P support will happen, and then reach will be a true superpower. The messaging app, the default in the app trays of both iOS and Android will support RCS. A brand using RCS will have access to every person on the largest human network this world has ever seen. That’s power.
In essence, do whatever it is you’re doing, but faster. Decide more quickly, drive faster, build velocity, and then use that speed to steer with finesse.
That’s the discipline of strategy. 1) Hold the dream. 2) Stress-test it with criticism. 3) Adjust without losing faith. I could be wrong about RCS. But then strategy isn’t about being right but ready.
RCS Builder’s Log is my running series of notes, takeaways, and experiments from building and deploying RCS in the wild.
Read other entries here.