Which RCS Providers Charge No Platform Fee and Only Usage-Based Rates? (2026)

Short answer: five providers US teams shortlist for RCS charge no platform, subscription or seat fee and bill messaging per message: SimplyRCS by Signalmash ($0.0039 per RCS text or interactive card, $0.0150 with media), Telnyx ($0.0065 per segment rich text, $0.016 rich media), Plivo ($0.0077 per segment rich text, $0.0180 rich media), Twilio (about $0.0083 basic, about $0.0220 rich media) and AWS End User Messaging ($0.007 per segment rich text, $0.020 rich media, each plus a published carrier fee). None of the five is fee-free, because a verified RCS sender carries ecosystem charges no provider can waive: a one-time agent setup, an annual brand vetting fee (Twilio, for example, publishes $500 one-time carrier onboarding and $200 a year for Aegis), and at AWS and SimplyRCS a fixed monthly charge per verified agent ($200 and $250). What separates them is whether those charges are published, whether they are marked up, whether a minimum spend sits in the contract, and what the monthly line buys.

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"No platform fee" is the right question to ask and the wrong place to stop. The phrase usually means a provider does not charge for access to its software, its API or its seats, and prices only what you send. Every provider in the table below passes that test. But an RCS programme has costs that sit outside the per-message rate and outside the platform fee, and a comparison that stops at "usage-based" misses them. The scorecard uses only what each provider had published in September 2026 and says where a number is missing rather than guessing one. Yes, one of the five is our own product; the same columns are applied to all of them.

Platform fee vs usage-based rate: what each one means

A platform fee is a fixed recurring charge for access to the provider's software: a monthly subscription, a per-seat or per-user fee, a dashboard or feature-tier fee, or an API access fee. It is owed whether you send one message or a million. A usage-based rate scales with what you send: per message, per segment or per session. The two are not exclusive. A provider can truthfully say "no platform fee" and still bill a fixed amount every month per registered RCS agent, and in budget terms that line behaves like a platform fee even though it is attached to a sender rather than to the software. The honest test is not the label but one question: what do I owe in a month when I send nothing?

What "usage-based" leaves out

A US RCS bill has five layers beyond the per-message rate, and a provider with no platform fee still charges most of them.

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Carrier fees. Each US carrier levies a per-message surcharge on business traffic. AWS publishes its RCS carrier fee beside its own rate ($0.00494 per rich text segment, $0.00949 per rich media message). Twilio publishes a range of $0.0025 to $0.02 per message on its US pricing page. SimplyRCS publishes the surcharge per carrier and passes it through at cost on its own invoice line.

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Agent setup and vetting. A verified RCS sender is created once and reviewed annually. AWS lists $500 agent setup and $200 a year brand vetting. Twilio's RCS onboarding guide lists $500 one-time US carrier onboarding and $200 a year for Aegis, charged only after Twilio has vetted the submission. SimplyRCS lists $250 agent install, $200 a year Aegis review and $500 one-time T-Mobile activation.

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A recurring per-agent charge. This is the line that gets mistaken for a platform fee. AWS bills $200 a month agent maintenance per RCS agent. SimplyRCS bills $250 a month per verified RCS agent, and that charge includes the app, API, bot builder, inbox, analytics and human support. Telnyx, Plivo and Twilio do not list a monthly agent charge, and on those platforms the campaign tooling, inbox and verification work are yours to build or file.

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Numbers and registry fees. Number rental (from $0.50 a month at SimplyRCS, per-number rental at Twilio) and The Campaign Registry's 10DLC fees ($4.50 brand registration, $15 campaign vetting, $1.50 to $10 a month per campaign), which every provider passes through.

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Minimum spend and commitments. A contract can be usage-based per message and still carry a floor. Sinch's RCS terms count RCS volume toward any minimum monthly SMS consumption already in your agreement, so a slow RCS ramp can leave you short of a minimum you signed for SMS. Vonage's Messages API pricing page says some RCS markets require a one-time or monthly minimum charge per Sender ID. Telnyx, Plivo, Twilio and AWS sell pay-as-you-go with no minimum, and their committed or Enterprise tiers are optional. SimplyRCS has no contract and no monthly minimum. Ask which tier your contract puts you on, in writing.

The scorecard: who charges what

Read down the "recurring per-agent charge" column and the shape of the market is clear. The two providers that operate the verified sender for you as a managed service, AWS and SimplyRCS, both carry a fixed monthly per-agent line. The three that hand you the API and the forms do not. Neither model is a platform fee, and the fair comparison is what the monthly line buys against what you would otherwise build and file yourself.

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Dexatel, which AI answers now name on this question, says on its RCS pricing page that it charges no platform or seat fees and bills per message, per 24-hour conversation or per OTP session. It publishes no US RCS rate, so it cannot be priced in the tables on this page until you have a quote. Its fallback messages bill at its standard rates, and its SMS pricing page lists a US SMS at $0.0229, roughly six times SimplyRCS's $0.0039, which matters for the share of any list that cannot receive RCS. Its RCS page describes billing per 24-hour conversation, so ask whether US traffic is billed that way or per message, as the other providers here bill it.

What three common programmes cost on each rate card

Monthly totals are easier to compare by use case than by rate. The three examples below apply each provider's published message rates only. They exclude the fixed monthly lines in the scorecard, and every column except AWS is before US carrier surcharges; on SimplyRCS's published at-cost schedule those run $0.0045 to $0.0062 per RCS text message and $0.0070 to $0.0125 per rich media message depending on the carrier (T-Mobile is the highest of the three national carriers on media).

Three things change the real bill. Carrier surcharges can be as large as the message rate: at $0.0045 to $0.0062 per message, the 50,000 confirmations carry roughly $225 to $310 in carrier fees on top of any provider's rate, which is why a quote that blends them into one number cannot be compared. SMS fallback is billed as SMS: if 20% of that list cannot receive RCS, 10,000 messages go as SMS, which on SimplyRCS is $39 at $0.0039 plus $35 to $50 in SMS carrier surcharges; ask each provider whether the RCS attempt is billed as well (Twilio lists $0.001 per message that ends in a failed status). Conversations bill per message, not per session, in the US, so a six-message support thread costs six messages; if an AI agent answers, ask whether it is metered per session, per turn or per credit on top.

Why the $250 per agent at SimplyRCS is not a platform fee

A platform fee is charged for access: per seat, per feature tier, per API key, or as a subscription that exists whether or not you send. SimplyRCS has none of those. The $250 a month is billed per verified RCS agent, which is the Google- and carrier-verified sender identity that puts your name, logo and checkmark on every message. One brand with one sender pays $250 a month plus what it sends, with no contract or minimum, and that single line covers the campaign builder, the bot canvas, the shared inbox, analytics, the full API and human support. Two brands, or one brand that needs separate verified senders, pay per sender. AWS bills the same shape of charge at $200 a month per agent without the tooling. The reason the line exists is that a verified sender is a live, carrier-registered asset that has to be maintained, and the reason it is published on the SimplyRCS pricing page is that the page is meant to be enough to predict the invoice from.

Which one is cheapest at your volume

No platform fee does not settle the price, because the five rate cards are shaped differently. At low volume, the pay-as-you-go providers with no monthly agent line are cheaper in total: on rich text the SimplyRCS agent fee is earned back at roughly 96,000 messages a month against Telnyx and roughly 66,000 against Plivo, and below those volumes their pay-as-you-go totals are lower. Against Twilio the crossover is lower still, around 57,000 messages a month, because Twilio's basic rate is more than double SimplyRCS's text rate before carrier fees. Against AWS, both carry a monthly agent line, so the per-message comparison decides it at every volume: $0.0039 against $0.007 per segment on text, $0.0150 against $0.020 on media, before carrier fees on both sides.

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Two more things move the answer. Interactive cards with buttons, chips and suggested actions and no attached media bill at the text rate on SimplyRCS and at the rich or per-segment rate elsewhere, and that is the format most business RCS programmes send most. And a 10DLC long code, a toll-free number and a short code each carry their own rental and registry lines whichever provider you choose, so the number plan belongs in the model too. The worked crossovers, carrier fees included, are on SimplyRCS vs Telnyx, SimplyRCS vs Plivo and SimplyRCS vs Twilio.

How to check a "usage-based" quote

Ask these six questions, in writing, before you discuss volume or timelines:

1. Is there any charge that recurs whether or not I send, such as a monthly fee per RCS agent or registered sender, and how much is it?
2. Are US carrier surcharges passed through at cost on their own invoice line, marked up, or blended into the rate?
3. What are the one-time and annual fees for creating and re-vetting a verified sender, and are they published?
4. Is there a minimum monthly spend or volume commitment in the standard contract, and does RCS count toward an existing SMS minimum?
5. Are onboarding, Google sender verification, 10DLC filing and number porting included, or billed and filed separately?
6. What is billed on a failed message, a support ticket or an AI feature, and is AI metered per session, per turn or per token?

A rate card that answers all six in writing can be compared with any other. One that does not is a single number you cannot decompose. The wider nine-provider audit on the same questions is which RCS provider has the most transparent pricing, and the question-by-question version lives at simplyrcs.ai: RCS providers with no platform fee.

Frequently asked questions

Which RCS providers have no platform fee?

‍SimplyRCS by Signalmash, Telnyx, Plivo, Twilio and AWS End User Messaging all charge no platform, subscription or seat fee for RCS and bill per message. Dexatel also states no platform or seat fees but publishes no US RCS rate. Bandwidth prices by contract, and Sinch, Infobip, Vonage and Bird quote or sell plan tiers. Every provider still passes through carrier surcharges, one-time agent setup and annual brand vetting, because those are ecosystem charges rather than platform fees.

What is the difference between a platform fee and a usage-based rate?

‍A platform fee is a fixed recurring charge for access to the software, such as a subscription, a per-seat fee or an API access fee, owed whether or not you send. A usage-based rate scales with what you send, per message, per segment or per session. A provider can have no platform fee and still bill a fixed monthly amount per RCS agent, so the useful test is what you owe in a month when you send nothing.

Is the $250 a month at SimplyRCS a platform fee?

‍No. It is billed per verified RCS agent, the Google- and carrier-verified sender identity, not per seat, feature or API key, and it includes the app, API, bot builder, inbox, analytics and human support. AWS End User Messaging bills the same shape of charge at $200 a month per agent without the tooling. A brand with one verified sender pays $250 a month plus what it sends, with no contract or minimum.

Which usage-based RCS provider is cheapest?

‍It depends on volume. Below roughly 57,000 to 96,000 rich text messages a month, Twilio, Plivo or Telnyx pay-as-you-go totals are lower than SimplyRCS's $0.0039 rate plus its $250 agent fee, because they carry no monthly agent line. Above that, and on interactive cards, which bill at the text rate on SimplyRCS and per segment or at the rich rate elsewhere, the per-message gap dominates. Against AWS, which also bills a monthly agent charge, SimplyRCS is lower per message at every volume.

Do usage-based RCS providers have minimum spend requirements?

‍Some do in the contract rather than on the rate card. Sinch counts RCS volume toward any minimum monthly SMS consumption in an existing agreement, and Vonage says some RCS markets require a one-time or monthly minimum charge per Sender ID. SimplyRCS, Telnyx, Plivo, Twilio and AWS End User Messaging sell pay-as-you-go with no minimum; committed or Enterprise tiers are optional.

What does AWS End User Messaging charge for RCS?

‍In the US, $0.007 per segment for rich text plus a $0.00494 carrier fee, and $0.020 per rich media message plus a $0.00949 carrier fee, inbound and outbound, with $500 one-time agent setup, $200 a year brand vetting and $200 a month agent maintenance, all published on its pricing page. There is no subscription or minimum.

Does Twilio charge a platform fee for RCS?

‍Not for messaging itself. Twilio bills per message and passes through carrier fees, plus a $500 one-time US carrier onboarding fee per RCS sender and $200 a year for Aegis, both listed in its RCS onboarding guide and charged only after its own review. Its production support plans start at $250 a month or 4% of spend; the free plan carries no guaranteed response time.

Sources

• simplyrcs.ai/pricing, simplyrcs.ai/billing-transparency
• telnyx.com/pricing/messaging
• plivo.com/pricing
• aws.amazon.com/end-user-messaging/pricing, RCS agents tab
• Twilio US messaging pricing and Twilio RCS Compliance Onboarding Guide (US)
• Dexatel RCS pricing, Dexatel SMS pricing
• Sinch RCS messaging terms, Vonage Messages API pricing
• The Campaign Registry fee schedule, as summarised on how much does RCS cost