RCS is GA in Marketing Cloud Next: sort consent, verification and fallback before the first rich message
Salesforce lists RCS messaging as GA in Marketing Cloud Next. The channel needs its own consent, a verified sender and an SMS fallback before it earns a campaign.
Salesforce's Marketing Cloud innovations page lists RCS messaging for Marketing Cloud Next as generally available now, alongside the October items from Dreamforce (Personalized Paths in Flow, Mobile Flash Sending). RCS is the carrier-delivered successor to SMS: branded sender, rich cards, images and suggested replies inside the phone's native messaging app, with Winter '27 also extending Handlebars and AMPscript personalisation to RCS, SMS, WhatsApp, in-app and push.
- Product
- Marketing Cloud Next
- Edition
- edition not stated in the source
- Topic
- SMS
- Last verified
Who this applies to
- Marketing Cloud Next teams already running SMS who want richer mobile messaging
- Australian and New Zealand programmes: carrier and handset support for RCS business messaging varies by market and is worth confirming before planning
- Edition and add-on requirements are not stated on the availability page; the SMS add-on and brand vetting rules that apply to SMS are the safe assumption
Why it matters
RCS looks like SMS with pictures and is governed like a new channel. It has its own consent in the Marketing Cloud Next consent model, its own brand verification with the carriers, and it falls back to SMS when a handset or network cannot receive it. Teams that treat it as a template change get three surprises: zero consent rows for the channel, a sender that is not verified, and a fallback SMS nobody designed.
Try it
- Ask your account team which carriers in your market deliver RCS business messages today and whether your org's messaging add-on covers the channel; do not plan on the availability page alone.
- Check the consent object for the RCS channel type. If there are no rows, nobody can be messaged on it yet; add the channel to your consent capture and preference centre before building content.
- Complete brand agent verification for the sender with the carriers, in the same way SMS needed brand vetting; allow weeks, not days.
- Design the SMS fallback message first, because that is what a meaningful share of recipients will receive, and set blockout windows for both.
- Pilot on one segment with a measurable action (reply, tap, conversion) and compare against the SMS control before moving a programme across.
Example use case
A clinic network wants appointment reminders as RCS cards with a one-tap confirm. Before any content is built it confirms carrier coverage with the account team, captures RCS consent on the booking form, completes sender verification, and writes the plain SMS fallback. The first month runs on one clinic's bookings, measured on confirmations per reminder against the SMS baseline.
Prerequisites, limitations and risks
- Marketing Cloud Next with SMS already configured; the SMS add-on and brand vetting apply (see our SMS tip)
- Consent captured for the RCS channel type, not only for SMS
- Carrier and handset support in your market; Salesforce's page gives availability of the feature, not of the networks
- Blockout windows configured for mobile channels
Documented behaviour above comes from the sources listed below. Availability varies by edition, SKU and region - confirm entitlements in your own org before you rely on a feature.
Sources
- Marketing Cloud innovations: availability by month
- Winter '27 Release Notes: Marketing (cross-channel scripting incl. RCS)
Stuck on this in your own org?
Blueport is a Sydney-based Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner with 100+ implementations since 2018. If a step above does not match what you see in Marketing Cloud Next, tell us - it is either an edition difference or a change worth knowing about, and we will find out which.
Talk to our team