RCS

RCS is what SMS became on Android. You send from a verified brand instead of a short string, and you can send things SMS has no way to express: images, cards, carousels, and buttons the user can tap.

curl -X POST https://api.9bits.net/ng/v1/rcs/messages \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer 9bk_xxx" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "senderId": "FirstDigits",
    "destination": "2348020000000",
    "content": "Your code is 481920. It expires in 5 minutes.",
    "ttl": "300s"
  }'

Text and rich are the same endpoint

There is one send endpoint, and you never pick a transport. It follows from what you asked to send.

How the split works

• Send content on its own and it goes out as plain text.
• Send a richCard, a carousel or suggestions and it goes out over the rich path instead, because there is no way to put a card, an image or a button on the plain-text one.

Supply both and you get the rich form. Dropping your card silently would deliver something you did not ask for.

This matters for one reason: rich messages need an RBM agent mapped to your sender, and plain text does not. A sender with no agent is refused with 400 before anything is billed. See Sender IDs.

You must be approved to send

Two gates, both checked before you are charged:

1. The senderId has to be registered to your account and approved. Not registered, or registered and still pending, is a 400.
2. The recipient must not have opted out of that brand. Someone who replied STOP is suppressed, and the send is refused rather than billed for a message the platform would have blocked anyway.

Opt-out is per (number, brand). Unsubscribing from one brand does not unsubscribe them from every brand you send.

Not every phone has RCS

RCS reaches Google Messages on Android. Some handsets, some networks and some users do not have it. Plan for a recipient who simply cannot receive an RCS message — check the delivery report and fall back to SMS when it comes back Undelivered.

A 200 is not a delivery

Every send is asynchronous. 200 means accepted and queued. The outcome arrives later, on your callback_url or in the reports — see Delivery reports.

Authentication

RCS uses the same scoped 9bk_ API keys as Email and WhatsApp:

Authorization: Bearer 9bk_xxx

The key needs an RCS scope — rcs:send to send, rcs:read to read. A key scoped to another product comes back 403 naming the scope it lacks.

Start here

Send your first RCS message One call, field by field, and what each response actually means.

Rich messages Cards, carousels and chips — the parts that only exist on RCS.

Broadcasts Price a campaign before committing, then send it to a whole group.

Sender IDs & agents Register a brand, get approved, and map the agent rich messages need.

Consent & opt-out Capture opt-in, honour STOP, and keep the evidence that you did.

Delivery reports Follow a message through its lifecycle and read the callback.

Try it live Run every endpoint against your account from the browser.