The useful starting claims
Chert advertises iMessage with SMS/RCS fallback, media, groups, reactions and delivery events. It says the API surfaces the channel used. That distinction is useful to an application that must explain why a message behaved differently for a particular recipient. These capabilities remain provider claims in this review.
Make identity part of the implementation record
The public description refers to operational management of sending identities. Ask how your assigned identity is selected, whether it can change and how an existing conversation is affected. Store the actual sender and channel with each test result.
The reviewed pages do not establish a numeric production price or a complete new-recipient allowance. Get both in a quote tied to your workload, along with setup costs and the owner of incident recovery.
A workshop acceptance test
Exercise a normal exchange, an attachment, an unavailable channel and a request whose outcome is temporarily uncertain. Keep the accepted request, provider reference and resulting events together. Ask how to reconcile the case if the client loses the send response.
Chert is worth evaluating when its native messaging features fit the application. Commit only when the implementation can explain failures as clearly as successes and the commercial terms cover the intended audience.