Short answer
RCS business messaging has no single global price. Google's RBM billing model counts billable events per agent and carrier: non-conversational agents are billed per message, while conversational agents are billed a fixed rate per 24-hour conversation once a user replies. Rates vary by carrier and country, so businesses confirm them in a quote.
How Google's RBM billing model works
Each RBM agent has a billing category chosen when it is created. Since 20 November 2025, Google uses two categories: non-conversational and conversational. The legacy Basic Message and Single Message categories were merged into non-conversational, without changing how events are billed.
Google tracks billable events and reports them to partners per agent, event type and carrier. Carriers decide whether and how user-originated events are charged.
Which events are billed?
| Billable event | What it is |
|---|---|
| basic_message | Business message with text only, 160 characters or less |
| single_message | Business message with rich content, or text over 160 characters |
| a2p_conversation | User replies within 24 hours; covers messages in the next 24 hours (conversational agents only) |
| p2a_conversation | Agent replies to a user within 24 hours (conversational agents only) |
| p2a_message | A user message billed on its own |
How to estimate your RCS cost
- Pick the billing category that matches the flow: non-conversational for OTPs, alerts and offers; conversational for back-and-forth journeys such as bookings.
- Estimate monthly volume per country and carrier, and the share of messages users reply to.
- Add SMS fallback volume for recipients who are not RCS-capable.
- Ask your provider for a quote per market and carrier.
Common mistakes
Comparing an RCS rate with an SMS rate alone ignores fallback traffic and long texts, which become single_message events. The category is also hard to change after launch. OmniChannels.ai confirms RCS costs in a quote; there is no setup fee or monthly minimum.