For a team under 10, a shared spreadsheet or calendar can still cope if leave rarely overlaps and one person owns the file. Once requests, approvals and edits involve several people, or balances start slipping, a simple planner pays for itself. The best fit at this size is a focused, low-cost tracker with no minimum seats: Book Time Off is a flat £1 per user / month, so a team of 6 is £6 a month, with UK bank holidays loaded automatically and a 30-day free trial.
When a spreadsheet still works under 10
There is no prize for buying software you do not need. A spreadsheet or shared calendar can genuinely be enough for a very small team when:
- You have around three to six people and everyone sees the same shared file.
- One person owns it and makes the edits, so there is never a version question.
- People rarely book the same week, so clashes are obvious at a glance.
- You only track annual leave, and remaining days are easy to count.
If that is you, start with a free staff holiday spreadsheet template and revisit when the points below start to bite. Our Book Time Off vs a spreadsheet comparison covers the trade-off in full.
The tipping points
Most teams under 10 switch not because of headcount but because of friction. The common triggers:
- More than one person edits the file, and changes start to clash or vanish.
- You have had a double-booked week, or someone went over their allowance unnoticed.
- You are adding UK bank holidays by hand each year.
- A part-timer joined and the pro-rata maths is fiddly to keep right.
- Staff keep asking how many days they have left, and you keep looking it up.
If you are nodding at two or more of those, the spreadsheet is costing you more than a few pounds a month. That is the moment a simple planner earns its place.
What to look for at this size
Keep it simple. A small team needs the essentials and nothing it will not use:
- Self-service requests and one-click approvals.
- An allowance per person with days remaining counted automatically.
- A shared calendar showing who is off.
- Half-day bookings and carry-forward of unused days.
- UK bank holidays loaded automatically for the right nation.
What you do not need yet is departments, maximum-absent rules or heavy reporting, and you definitely do not need a full HR suite. Paying per user for onboarding and performance modules makes no sense for a team of eight, as our annual leave tracker vs HR software guide explains.
Why Book Time Off suits a small team
Book Time Off is built for exactly this: a focused leave tracker, priced so small teams are not penalised.
- No minimum seats. You pay £1 for each active person, so a team of 5 pays £5.
- UK bank holidays automatic. Pulled from the GOV.UK feed for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, never deducted from allowance.
- Set up in minutes. Add a default allowance, add your people, invite them, done.
- Room to grow. When you do pass 10 and want departments, max-absent limits, Slack or Teams and reporting, they are already in the same £1 plan.
Add your people, load UK bank holidays automatically and approve a request. 30 days free, no card required, no minimum.
What it costs
Book Time Off is a flat £1 per user / month with no minimum and no contract:
| Team size | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| 5 people | £5 | £60 |
| 7 people | £7 | £84 |
| 9 people | £9 | £108 |
Best for and not best for
✓ A planner makes sense if
- You are near 10 people, or growing toward it
- More than one person manages leave
- You have part-timers or recurring clashes
- You want staff to self-serve their balance
A spreadsheet may still do if
- You are three or four people with little overlap
- One person owns the file with no version confusion
- You track annual leave only, and balances are simple
- You have no data-control or visibility concerns yet
Frequently asked questions
Not always. A team of three or four with little overlapping leave can manage on a shared spreadsheet or calendar. The case for software grows as you approach 10 people, when several need to request, approve and edit leave, when remaining-days maths starts to slip, and when you want to see clashes before they happen. At that point a simple tracker like Book Time Off, at a flat £1 per user per month, costs very little and removes the admin.
A spreadsheet is free but costs admin time and breaks down with clashes and part-timers. Among paid tools, dedicated trackers are cheapest: Book Time Off is £1 per user per month with no minimum, so a team of 6 is £6 a month, with a 30-day free trial and no card. For a small team that is usually less than the value of the time saved each month.
Move when you hit the tipping points: more than one person edits the file, you have had a double-booked week or a miscounted balance, you are adding UK bank holidays by hand, part-timers need pro-rata allowances, or you want staff to see their own balance without asking. Below those, a spreadsheet can be fine; above them, the time it costs outweighs a few pounds a month.
Keep it simple: self-service requests, one-click approvals, an allowance per person with days remaining counted automatically, a shared calendar showing who is off, half-day bookings, and UK bank holidays loaded for the right nation. You do not need departments or heavy admin at this size, so avoid paying for a full HR suite.
Yes. It has no minimum seats and a flat £1 per user per month price, so a team of 5 or 8 pays only for the people it has. It loads UK bank holidays automatically, handles half-days and carry-forward, and staff can request leave themselves. There is a 30-day free trial with no card, so a small team can try it before paying anything.