Tracked 24 is the service most online sellers reach for when a customer wants a parcel quickly, and it's the one we print the most labels for. It aims for next-working-day delivery, carries full tracking and a delivery photo or signature, and is priced by parcel size rather than precise weight. That flat-per-band pricing is both the reason it's so popular and the thing that trips people up when they assume it works like letter postage.
What Tracked 24 actually delivers
Tracked 24 is a next-working-day delivery aim, not a guarantee. Royal Mail will tell you the vast majority of parcels arrive the next day, and in practice that's true for most of the country, but remote postcodes and busy periods can push it to two days. If you genuinely need a money-back guarantee, that's Special Delivery, which costs more precisely because it promises a day and compensates you if it misses.
What you do get with Tracked 24 is full tracking. The parcel is scanned at drop-off, through the network, and on delivery, with a photo of the parcel at the door or a signature in most cases. That delivery proof is worth real money when a customer claims an item never arrived, because it's the evidence that wins the dispute.
How Tracked 24 is priced
Tracked 24 prices by parcel size band, Small Parcel and Medium Parcel, and the price stays the same across a band as long as you're under its weight limit. A 500g Small Parcel costs the same as a 1.9kg Small Parcel. That's a genuine departure from letter services, which step up in price with every weight bracket, and it's why weighing to the gram matters less here than knowing which band you're in.
The July 2026 price point
Royal Mail revises its rate card every July, and the 2026 increase nudged Tracked 24 prices up again, which has become an annual event. We deliberately don't print an exact figure here because it goes stale the moment the next rate card lands, and a wrong price in a blog post is worse than no price. The reliable way to see the current number is to weigh your parcel, put it into Click & Drop, and read the quote. What we can tell you is the structure: you pay a premium over Tracked 48 for the next-day aim, and that premium is usually a pound or two.
Tracked 24 vs Tracked 48
The only meaningful difference between the two is speed. Both are tracked, both include delivery confirmation and compensation, both use the same size bands. Tracked 24 aims for next day, Tracked 48 for two to three days. If your customer hasn't paid for speed and isn't going to complain about an extra day, Tracked 48 does the job for less, which is the whole argument in our Tracked 24 vs 48 comparison.
Tracked 24 vs Signed For and 1st Class
It's easy to blur these together, but they're different animals. 1st Class is an untracked next-day aim for letters and small parcels. Signed For adds a signature to 1st or 2nd Class but still isn't tracked through the network. Tracked 24 is fully tracked with a next-day aim and better compensation. For anything a customer is waiting on, Tracked 24 beats both, and the price gap is smaller than most people expect once you factor in what you actually get.
Where to buy it cheapest
The headline online price is rarely the price you should be paying at volume. Click & Drop gives you the standard online rate, which already undercuts the counter. A Royal Mail Online Business Account gets you below that, and parcel aggregators and shipping platforms can go lower still if you shop around. If you send more than a handful of parcels a day, the single biggest saving available to you is simply not paying the retail rate.
What compensation is included
Tracked 24 includes compensation for loss or damage up to a standard limit as part of the price, with the option to bolt on enhanced cover for higher-value items. If your typical order value sits above the basic limit, factor that add-on into your cost comparison rather than assuming Tracked 24 protects the full item value out of the box. The details are in our compensation limits guide.
Size and weight limits to know
Tracked 24 covers parcels up to the Medium Parcel limits, which is 20kg and specific dimensions. Go over those and the parcel has to move to a courier service, where pricing works differently. The exact boundaries matter because a parcel a centimetre over a limit costs you a band jump, so it's worth a quick check before you print. Our size and weight guide lists them.
Dropping off or getting collected
You can drop a Tracked 24 parcel at a Post Office or a Local Collect point for free, or book a Parcel Collect and have the postie take it from your door for a small fee. There's also a parcel box network if you're out and about. For a home-based seller, Parcel Collect is often the difference between a quick dispatch routine and a daily trip to the counter, and the maths on whether it's worth the fee is in our Parcel Collect guide.
Printing the label
Tracked 24 postage bought online prints as a standard 100 × 150mm label with the barcode and address on it, and it's designed to run straight through a 4x6 thermal printer with no reformatting. The barcode is the entire tracking mechanism, so a crisp print is what keeps the scans reliable. If your labels come out faint or smudged, fix the darkness setting before you print a day's worth of parcels.
When Tracked 24 is genuinely worth it
Reach for Tracked 24 when the customer has paid for faster delivery, when the item is time-sensitive, or when you want the strongest possible proof of delivery for seller protection. It's the default for anything that can't afford to sit an extra day, and the tracking alone has saved plenty of sellers from chargebacks that a cheaper untracked service would have lost.
When to use something else
If a parcel is heavy, bulky or genuinely must arrive on a specific day with a guarantee, Special Delivery or a courier is the better tool. If it's non-urgent and low-value, Tracked 48 or even a basic untracked service saves money for no real customer-facing downside. Tracked 24 isn't the answer to every parcel, just the answer to the one where speed and proof both matter.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tracked 24 a guaranteed next-day service? No. Tracked 24 is a next-working-day delivery aim. For a guaranteed next-day service with compensation if it misses, use Special Delivery.
How much does Tracked 24 cost in July 2026? The price is set per parcel size band and changes each July, so check the live rate in Click & Drop. It costs a pound or two more than Tracked 48 for the next-day aim.
Does Tracked 24 include compensation? Yes, it includes standard compensation for loss or damage, with enhanced cover available as an add-on for higher-value items.
The label most Tracked 24 senders use
Whatever you send on Tracked 24, our 100 × 150mm direct thermal labels print the barcode cleanly so every scan in that next-day chain registers first time.
Shop 4×6 Labels