When you add media to an RCS Card, the image or video displays at the top of the card, above your title, description, and buttons.

Postscript sets the media size based on the message type: standalone cards use a tall media area and carousels use a medium one which follows best practice recommendations. These describe the height of the media area on the card, not the orientation of your image. Both card types take landscape media.

A few things to keep in mind:

Getting your aspect ratio right is the single most impactful thing you can do to make your RCS messages look polished. Here are the specs to follow.

For a single RCS Card, use a 3:2 landscape image.

Optimal resolution: 1620 × 1080 px

Recommended file size: 500 KB – 2 MB. Smaller is better for fast loading. RCS supports files up to 100 MB, but we recommend keeping images well below that.

Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF

Carousels use a wider aspect ratio than standalone cards. Use a 16:9 landscape image for carousel cards.

Optimal resolution: 1920 × 1080 px

Recommended file size: 300 KB – 1 MB per card (smaller files keep swiping smooth)

Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, GIF

For product-centric automation triggers, you can use a dynamic product photo as the media in your RCS Card or Carousel — the same way MMS already supports this for those flows.

When building an automation, select the Dynamic product photo option in the card or carousel's media field. Postscript will automatically pull in the product image associated with the trigger at send time, so each subscriber sees the photo for the specific product tied to their automation event.

A few things to know:

You can embed video directly into your RCS Cards and Carousels. Video plays inline within the card, so subscribers tap to play without leaving the conversation. It's a great way to show off products, share tutorials, or grab attention.
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Match your video to the ratio you'd use for a still image in that card type. Video fills the same media area as an image, and the same cropping behavior applies.

When you include video in a card, you can provide a thumbnail image (the static preview subscribers see before they tap play). Providing one is strongly recommended.

The same card can look noticeably different depending on whether your subscriber is on iOS or Android. The core experience is the same on both platforms, but three things render differently in ways that affect how you select media, design for carousels, and think about copy.

If your media matches the recommended aspect ratio, it won't be cropped on either platform. A subscriber holding their phone in portrait mode at the default text size sees your full image on both iOS and Android. Cropping becomes a problem when your aspect ratio doesn't match, and the two platforms handle the mismatch in opposite ways.

So a portrait image doesn't get "cropped" the same way on both platforms. On Android, it gets center-cropped down to a landscape slice. On iOS, it renders full height, making your card unusually tall and pushing your description and buttons down the screen. Cropping can still occur on both platforms in two situations:

Carousels swipe horizontally on both platforms, but they're framed differently:

The difference that affects how you design a carousel is sizing. On iOS, both the width and height of a carousel card can vary from card to card, driven by the media's aspect ratio and the length of the title and description. On Android, cards stay a uniform size because the platform center-crops media to fit. That makes an iOS carousel the place where inconsistency shows up most. You can avoid it in two ways:

Text length changes how your card renders, and iOS and Android treat copy differently.

On iOS, a card's height adjusts based on how much text it holds. In a carousel, that means a card with a two-word title and a card with a full sentence display at visibly different sizes as subscribers swipe. On Android, card sizing stays uniform regardless of text length.

The bigger difference shows up when text runs long. If your combined title and description exceed six lines, the card converts into a tappable full-text view. Subscribers tap to open an expanded screen that supports up to 200 characters of title and 2,000 characters of description.

That sounds useful, but there's an important catch. On iOS, the expanded full-text view does not display your media or your suggested action buttons. Your image and your call to action both disappear. On Android, media, buttons, and swipe navigation are all retained in the expanded view.

If your card is your conversion moment, running past six lines on iOS means subscribers land on a view with nothing but your message copy and no way to act on it without navigating back to the card. See Keeping Your Text Within the Card below for how to budget your copy.

When in doubt, design for iOS and verify on Android. iOS is the more restrictive of the two - it's where card sizing varies, where extra suggested actions collapse into a dropdown, and where the expanded view drops your media and buttons. Content that holds up on iOS almost always holds up on Android.

The safe zone is the area of your image that stays visible no matter how a subscriber's device adjusts it. We recommend keeping critical content such as products, logos, faces, and any text overlays within the center 90% of your image, leaving at least a 5% margin on all sides.

In practice, that means giving your subject a little breathing room rather than running it to the edge of the frame. If your product photo already has some margin around it, you're likely fine.

Your card's title and description share a limited amount of space, and running past it changes how the whole card behaves, not just how it looks.

Keep your title and description to three lines combined. At default text settings, a line holds roughly 50 characters, so about 150 characters total is a good working budget.

Treat that character count as a guideline rather than a hard limit. The number of lines your text actually takes up depends on the subscriber's font size and whether they're holding their phone in portrait or landscape.

Each suggestion label is capped at 25 characters. Short, specific labels like Shop the sale or Track my order work better than anything you'd need to truncate.

You can add up to four per card, and they come in two types. Both types count toward the same four-suggestion limit.

For consistency we recommend one suggested action plus up to three suggested replies, with the action placed first. Ordering matters because of the way iOS handles suggested actions. On iOS, if a card has two or more suggested actions, they collapse into a single Options dropdown instead of displaying as individual buttons. Your primary call to action ends up hidden behind an extra tap.

Leading with a single action keeps that button visible on both platforms.

Before you send your next RCS campaign, run through this quick list:

[ ] Standalone card images are 1620 × 1080 px (3:2) and 500 KB – 2 MB

[ ] Carousel card images are 1920 × 1080 px (16:9) and 300 KB – 1 MB

[ ] Critical content sits within the 5% safe zone, away from the edges

[ ] All carousel cards use the same dimensions

[ ] Title and description are three lines or fewer (roughly 150 characters)

[ ] Carousel card text lengths are similar across all cards

[ ] Cards have one suggested action, placed first, plus up to three replies

[ ] Suggestions are on the card or the message, not both

[ ] Images are JPEG or PNG (use GIF only if Android animation is the goal)

[ ] Video files are MP4 and under the size limit

[ ] You've previewed on both iOS and Android if possible

[ ] Your first carousel card has strong fallback content for non-RCS devices

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