Question 1

What is RCS?

Accepted Answer

RCS (Rich Communication Services) is the next generation of SMS messaging. It enables businesses to send rich, interactive messages with features like high-resolution images, carousels, quick replies, and read receipts directly through the default messaging app on Android and iOS devices.

Question 2

How long does it take to get approved for RCS?

Accepted Answer

With Pinnacle, we get you up and running in less than an hour and a live agent in 4 weeks. This is 2-3x faster than competitors like Twilio (12 weeks), Sinch (8 weeks), and Infobip (8 weeks). We automate compliance on your behalf to accelerate the approval process.

Question 3

What's the difference between RCS and SMS?

Accepted Answer

RCS offers enhanced features over traditional SMS including high-resolution images and videos, interactive buttons and carousels, read receipts and typing indicators, and branded sender information. SMS is limited to 160 characters of plain text, while RCS supports rich media and interactive elements.

Question 4

Can I test RCS before going live?

Accepted Answer

Yes! Pinnacle provides a sandbox environment where you can test RCS messaging before launching your agent. This allows you to iterate on your messaging flows and ensure everything works perfectly before going live.

Question 5

What happens if a user can't receive RCS?

Accepted Answer

Pinnacle includes number lookup capabilities to identify if a phone number can receive RCS ahead of time. If RCS isn't available, you can seamlessly fall back to SMS/MMS to ensure message delivery to all users.

Question 6

Which countries does Pinnacle support?

Accepted Answer

Pinnacle supports RCS messaging in the US on all available carriers. Contact our team for more details.

Question 7

What are the message size limits and segmentation rules?

Accepted Answer

Different messaging types have different limits: SMS supports GSM-7 encoding (160 characters for single messages, 153 per segment for multi-part) or UTF-16 encoding (70 characters for single messages, 67 per segment for multi-part). MMS has a 4.5 MB maximum per message and supports up to 10 files, with text and media split into multiple messages if needed. RCS Text uses UTF-8 encoding with 160 byte segments. RCS Media supports up to 100 MB per message and allows rich media with both text and files in a single message.

Question 8

Do you offer API documentation?

Accepted Answer

Yes! We provide comprehensive API documentation with examples in Python, TypeScript, Ruby, and other languages. Our intuitive API makes it easy to integrate RCS messaging into your application.