If leave tracking is the only CharlieHR feature you actually use, switch. CharlieHR costs £20 to £315 a month plus VAT depending on team size; Book Time Off costs £1 per user per month flat with no tiers or VAT surprises. A 15-person team saves around £1,300 a year. Keep CharlieHR only if you actively use document storage, performance reviews or onboarding workflows.
The real question to ask first
CharlieHR is a competent UK SME HR platform. Document storage, onboarding workflows, performance reviews, holiday management, the Perks discounts platform, and an HR advice add-on if you need it. For a small business that genuinely uses all of those features, it earns its keep.
The catch: most teams that sign up for CharlieHR end up using only one or two of those features regularly. By far the most common one-feature use is leave management. The platform sits there; the team only opens it to book holiday and check who is off next week.
If that sounds like your business, you are paying for a Mercedes to run errands to the corner shop. The right question is not "is CharlieHR good?" · it is. The right question is: do I actually use anything beyond the leave management?
Be honest. If the answer is no · or if everyone in the team only logs in to book leave and then forgets the platform exists for another month · then the rest of this article is for you. We are going to show you exactly how much money is on the table, what to switch to, and how to do it without losing your data.
Our recommendation up front
Book Time Off · £1 per user per month, flat
One plan, one price, no tiers. Calendar and wallchart views, custom allowances per person, custom leave types, UK bank holidays loaded automatically from the GOV.UK feed, half-day bookings, departments with max-absent limits, one-click email approvals. 30-day free trial, no card required.
Why this is the right pick: if leave tracking is the only thing you actually need, this is the cheapest, simplest tool that does it well. A 15-person team pays £15 a month here vs around £126 with CharlieHR including VAT · that's £1,332 a year back to the business for the same functional outcome.
Two other dedicated leave tools (Timetastic and Leave Dates) are also good options · they do the same job at similar prices. We cover the differences below.
The cost gap by team size
CharlieHR's pricing is tiered by team size and quoted before VAT. For a fair like-for-like, the tables below include the 20% VAT and compare against Book Time Off's flat £1 per user per month (which does include VAT in the price you see · we are not registered above the threshold for our blog, but our SaaS pricing is set net of any tier games).
A 5-minute audit: should you switch?
Before you make the call, run a quick honest audit. Look at the last three months of CharlieHR usage (your admin can pull this from the dashboard) and ask which of these features your team actually clicked on. Then sort yourself into one of two camps.
- Store contracts and signed documents in the platform
- Run quarterly or annual performance reviews through it
- Use the onboarding workflows for new hires
- Have managers check the org chart and reports
- Use Perks discounts as part of the benefits offer
- Pay for the HR Advice add-on (£179-299/month)
- The only feature anyone opens is leave management
- You store contracts in Google Drive or Dropbox already
- Performance reviews happen offline or in another tool
- You hire occasionally, not constantly
- The Perks discounts go unused
- Setup felt heavier than the value you actually get
If you are in the right column on most of those rows, the move makes sense. The cost saving is real, the leave-tracking experience is at least as good, and your team will probably find the simpler tool less friction to use day-to-day.
Side-by-side comparison table
Just leave-management features. Book Time Off in the first column.
| Feature | Book Time Off | CharlieHR |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest plan (15-person team) | £15 / month | £126 / month inc. VAT |
| Pricing model | £1 per user / month flat | Tiered by team size + 20% VAT |
| Free trial | 30 days, no card | 7 days, no card |
| Wallchart view | Yes · the home screen | Calendar view only |
| UK bank holidays | Auto from GOV.UK feed | Yes |
| Custom allowances per person | Yes | Yes |
| Custom leave types | Yes | Yes |
| Half-day bookings | Yes | Yes |
| Departments & max-absent limits | Yes | Departments yes, limits less obvious |
| Setup time (15-person team) | ~15 minutes | ~1-2 hours (HR onboarding flow) |
| Document storage | No (use Google Drive) | Yes |
| Performance reviews | No | Yes |
| Onboarding workflows | No | Yes |
| Perks & benefits platform | No | Yes |
The honest read: Book Time Off does the leave-tracking job at a fraction of CharlieHR's price. CharlieHR adds document storage, performance reviews, onboarding and Perks · real features, but only worth paying for if you actually use them. For the leave-only case, you are paying around £111 a month extra for a 15-person team to have those features sit unused.
Book Time Off in depth
Book Time Off does one thing: leave management for UK SMEs. One plan, one price, no Pro tier dangling more features above you, no VAT surprises in the second tier.
Why this works for the CharlieHR-leaver
- Same job, fraction of the price. £1 per user per month flat. A 15-person team saves around £1,332 a year vs CharlieHR with VAT. A 50-person team saves nearly £4,000.
- Wallchart-first design. CharlieHR's leave UI is calendar-only. Book Time Off opens straight to a wallchart so you see who's off this week without clicking around.
- UK bank holidays from the source. We pull directly from the GOV.UK feed for England & Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland; bank holidays never come out of anyone's allowance.
- Custom allowances per person, custom leave types. All the things you currently use CharlieHR's leave module for, with the same flexibility.
- 15-minute setup. No onboarding workflow to configure, no document templates to upload, no review cycles to set up. Add the team, set allowances, you're done.
- 30 days, no card required. Try the entire product in parallel with CharlieHR, then make the call.
The honest trade-offs
- Leave only. No document storage, no performance reviews, no onboarding workflows. If you use those CharlieHR features, you'll need to replace them (Google Drive for documents is the most common move for SMEs).
- No native mobile app yet. Mobile-friendly web app rather than an iOS/Android download.
- No public API or Slack/Teams integration. Email notifications cover the main approval flow.
- Newer product. Smaller user base than the established players. The trade-off is responsiveness · we typically reply to support emails the same working day.
Other leave-only options
Two other UK-focused dedicated leave tools cover the same need at similar prices. They are real alternatives if Book Time Off doesn't fit for some reason.
Standard plan £1.20 per user per month, Pro plan £2 per user per month (adds wellbeing analytics like a burnout board). Has native iOS and Android apps. 50% off for charities, B Corps and NHS Trusts. The most refined UX of the three. Worth the small premium over Book Time Off if you specifically value the native mobile app or qualify for the discount; otherwise our flat £1 plan does the same core job for less.
For a deeper comparison, see our Timetastic alternatives 2026 guide.
UK-built, founded by Liz and Phil Norton in Bracknell. Pricing is tiered, from £0.75 per user per month on the annual Starter tier (£1 monthly), with a 30-day free trial and no free-forever plan. Roughly the same price as Book Time Off but with more configuration overhead. Has a public API and Zapier integration if you need them.
For the focused three-way comparison, see our Leave Dates vs Timetastic vs Book Time Off comparison.
When CharlieHR is worth keeping
We are not arguing CharlieHR is a bad product · for the right team it earns its price. Three honest cases where staying put is the better call:
1. You actually use the HR-suite features. If your team genuinely runs structured performance reviews, stores contracts in CharlieHR's document vault, uses the onboarding workflows for every new hire, and treats Perks discounts as part of the benefits package, the bundled price compares well to buying separate tools. That is the use case it was built for.
2. You hire frequently. If you bring on multiple new starters per quarter, the onboarding workflow saves real admin time. A leave-only tool can't replace that · you would need to bolt on something separate.
3. You pay for the HR Advice add-on. The £179-299/month HR Advice service gives you access to qualified HR consultants. If you use that · particularly if it has saved you from a tribunal or helped with a redundancy · the value is real and outside what a leave tool gives you.
If none of those apply, you are essentially paying for an HR platform to act as an expensive holiday booking system. The case for switching is straightforward.
How to switch from CharlieHR
Migration sounds heavier than it is. The realistic path:
Sign up for the Book Time Off 30-day trial · no card needed
The trial is the full product. Run it in parallel with CharlieHR for a couple of weeks so you can compare day-to-day with no pressure. We don't auto-charge if you decide it's not for you.
Export your team and leave data from CharlieHR
CharlieHR lets administrators export team and leave records as CSV from the platform. Pull the user list (names, emails, allowances) and the current year's booked leave. If you can't find the export, CharlieHR support can walk you through it.
Import into Book Time Off and set starting allowances
Add your team by invite and set their starting allowances. For each person, set their starting allowance for the new tool as their remaining CharlieHR balance · not their full annual entitlement · so the maths stays right for the rest of the leave year. Re-enter only the still-future approved bookings.
Replace any CharlieHR features you actually use
Document storage typically moves to Google Drive, Dropbox or SharePoint (most SMEs already have one of these). Onboarding can become a shared checklist in Notion or a Google Doc. Performance reviews can move to a simpler tool like Lattice, or stay in a spreadsheet. The point is to consciously decide what to keep and what to drop, not to lose data.
Cancel CharlieHR, tell the team, archive the data
Once Book Time Off is the source of truth, cancel CharlieHR and download a final data export for your records. Tell the team plainly which tool to use for what going forward. Most people will adapt within a day · leave-tracking UIs are not that different.
For broader context on the move from a full HR suite to dedicated tools, our BreatheHR alternatives 2026 guide covers the same fork from the BreatheHR side, and the best leave management software for UK small businesses guide sets out the broader landscape.
FAQ
How much does CharlieHR cost compared to a dedicated leave tool?
CharlieHR is tiered by team size, all plus 20% VAT: £20/month for 1-4 users, £45 for 5-14, £105 for 15-29, £180 for 30-49 and £315 for 50-99. Book Time Off is £1 per user per month flat with no VAT tier surprises. A 15-person team pays roughly £126 a month with VAT for CharlieHR vs £15 for Book Time Off · an £1,332 annual gap if leave is all you actually use.
Should I keep CharlieHR or switch to a leave-only tool?
Keep CharlieHR if you actively use document storage for contracts, run structured performance reviews through it, use Perks discounts, or rely on the onboarding workflows. Switch to a leave-only tool if leave is the only feature you regularly open, or if your team finds CharlieHR overcomplicated for what they need. Be honest with yourself: open your last three months' usage data and check what you actually clicked on.
What are the best CharlieHR alternatives for just leave tracking in the UK?
Three UK-focused dedicated leave tools cover this need well. Book Time Off is £1 per user per month flat · the cheapest paid option, with no upgrade tier. Timetastic is £1.20 Standard or £2 Pro, the most polished and oldest. Leave Dates is priced from £0.75 per user per month on annual billing (no free-forever tier). All three do the leave-tracking job well at a fraction of CharlieHR's cost.
Can I export my CharlieHR data when switching?
Yes. CharlieHR lets administrators export team and leave data as CSV from the platform. Most leave-only tools make the transfer straightforward: in Book Time Off you invite your people and set their starting allowances, or import a Timetastic full-organisation export if that is where you are coming from. The cleanest cutover is at the start of a new leave year (1 January or 1 April for most UK SMEs); mid-year, you set each person's remaining balance as their starting allowance in the new tool.
Will switching from CharlieHR mean losing onboarding and document storage?
Yes · dedicated leave tools do leave only. If you actively use CharlieHR's onboarding workflows and document storage, those features need replacing. Document storage can move to Google Drive, Dropbox or SharePoint at low cost. Onboarding for SMEs without high hire volumes often works fine as a shared checklist. If you genuinely use these features regularly, that's an argument to keep CharlieHR.
Is Book Time Off as full-featured as CharlieHR?
No, and deliberately so. Book Time Off does leave management only · calendar and wallchart views, custom allowances, custom leave types, UK bank holidays from the GOV.UK feed, half-day bookings, departments with max-absent limits, one-click email approvals. It does not do document storage, performance reviews, onboarding workflows, payroll or perks. If you only need leave, that focus is the point. If you need the rest, CharlieHR or another HR suite is the right shape of tool.
Sources
Pricing claims are from the providers' own published pages and from independent review aggregators. Last verified May 2026.
| Source | Used for |
|---|---|
| CharlieHR Help Center pricing article | CharlieHR tier pricing, VAT, free trial terms, HR Advice add-on rate |
| CharlieHR pricing page | Plan structure and trial terms |
| Capterra UK CharlieHR listing | Feature set, review trends |
| Timetastic pricing page | Standard and Pro plan rates, charity/NHS discount |
| Leave Dates product page | Free tier and paid pricing |