Best leave management software for UK small businesses (2026)

There is no single best leave management tool for everyone, but there is a best one for your team and budget. This guide ranks the realistic options for a UK small business, with prices checked on the day of writing, and tells you honestly where each one wins. We make one of them (Book Time Off), and we say so throughout, conceding the cases where a competitor is the better fit.

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Our pick for most UK SMEs

Book Time Off, at £1 per user / month with a 30-day free trial and no card required, is the one we would point most small UK teams to. It is a focused leave tracker that loads UK bank holidays automatically and imports your Timetastic full-organisation export. At £1 it also bundles what rivals gate behind a pricier tier: Microsoft 365 single sign-on, Outlook sync, Teams notifications and admin reports with CSV export. Where you need the absolute lowest rate, per-type balances, or full HR beyond leave, we name the better tool below.

The market splits cleanly in two: dedicated leave trackers (Book Time Off, Leave Dates, Timetastic, Vacation Tracker) do one job well at a low per-user price, and full HR suites (Breathe, CharlieHR) bundle leave with documents and onboarding for a higher price that only makes sense if you need the extras. Get that fork right and the shortlist almost picks itself.

The shortlist at a glance

Pricing and trial terms below were checked against each provider's own site on 5 June 2026; the dated sources are at the foot of the page.

Tool	Price	Free trial	Card to start	Type
Book Time Off	£1 / user / month	30 days	No card	Dedicated leave · flat rate, no minimum
Leave Dates	From £0.75 / user / month	30 days	No card	Dedicated leave · tiered (annual for lowest)
Timetastic	£1.20 Basic / £2 Pro	30 days	No card	Dedicated leave · per-type balances
Vacation Tracker	$2 Core / $4 Complete (USD)	7 days	No card	Dedicated leave · free tier · chat-first
Breathe	From ~£20 / business / month	14 days	No card	Full HR suite · per business by band
CharlieHR	Per employee, tiered	7 days	No card	Full HR suite · per employee

The takeaway: for leave alone on a flat per-user price, Book Time Off and Leave Dates are the value picks; Timetastic is a fifth dearer on Basic; Vacation Tracker is priced in dollars with monthly minimums; and Breathe and CharlieHR sit higher because they do far more than leave.

Dedicated tracker or full HR suite?

One decision settles most of the choice. If the job is tracking who is off, approving requests and keeping allowances tidy, a dedicated leave tracker is cheaper and simpler to run; if leave is one of several HR jobs you want in one place (contracts, documents, onboarding, performance), a full HR suite earns its higher price, and paying HR-suite money to do only leave is the most common overspend we see. For the full treatment, including where a separate balance per leave type tips you toward Timetastic or Vacation Tracker, see annual leave tracker vs HR software.

What a leave tracker must do

Before comparing names, it helps to agree the job. UK workers are entitled to at least 5.6 weeks of paid holiday a year, or 28 days for a five-day week (GOV.UK), so whatever you pick must track that reliably. A good leave tracker for a UK small business should cover the essentials below. Use it as a checklist when you trial any of the tools that follow:

What to look for	Why it matters
Self-service requests and approvals	Staff book their own leave and a manager approves it, so the record updates itself rather than relying on email.
Allowance, days used and days remaining	Each person has an annual allowance, and the balance counts down automatically as leave is approved.
Shared team calendar	Everyone can see who is off at a glance, so clashes are spotted before they happen.
Half-day bookings	Mornings and afternoons, not just whole days.
Carry-forward of unused leave	Unused days roll into the new year within whatever limit you set.
UK bank holidays, automatic	The right nation's bank holidays load on their own and are not deducted from allowance.
Departments and capacity limits	A maximum-absent limit per team stops too many people being off at once.
Notifications and calendar sync	Email, Slack or Teams alerts, and a feed into Outlook, Google or Apple Calendar.
Reports and CSV export	A clear summary of leave taken that you can export for payroll or records.
UK data protection	Leave records are personal data, so check where it is hosted, that there is a data processing agreement, and that you can export and delete it (UK GDPR).

1. Book Time Off · best value for leave tracking

Book Time Off

£1 / user / month

UK-built · dedicated leave tracking · that's us

Strengths Calendar and team views with today highlighted, custom annual allowances set per person, half-day (AM/PM) bookings, one-click email approvals, days used and days remaining at a glance, departments with a manager and a max-absent limit, blocked or blackout dates, group bookings with one-click group cancellation, and the ability to trim a single day out of a booking and refund just that day. Carry-forward of unused allowance runs with a company-wide limit and an optional expiry window, where carried days sit in a separate labelled balance with a use-by date and are dropped automatically if they are not used in time. UK bank holidays load automatically from the GOV.UK feed for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and are never deducted from anyone's allowance. Microsoft 365 single sign-on, per-user Outlook sync, Teams notifications and a daily who's-off Teams digest are all included, and a full Slack integration is in the same plan: request and approval DMs with one-click Approve and Decline buttons, leave booking from inside Slack, a daily who's-off channel post, the /whosoff command and automatic "On leave" statuses. There are also read-only iCal/ICS subscribe feeds for Google and Apple Calendar, and an admin-only reports view that summarises approved leave taken per person and per leave type over any period, filters by department, shows month-by-month and per-type and per-department insight charts, and exports to CSV. Those last few are features Timetastic keeps for its £2 Pro plan; here they are in the single £1 plan. It imports the Timetastic full-organisation export, and it is £1 per user / month with a 30-day free trial, no card and no minimum.

Trade-offs Leave types share one allowance: they are categories on the same calendar under a single approval workflow rather than separate balances, so a team that needs a distinct pot per type should look at Timetastic or Vacation Tracker. The working week is set company-wide, so there are no per-person working-day patterns. It is leave only, with no contracts, documents or performance features, and there is no public API; calendar sync is one-way (an Outlook write and the iCal subscribe feeds), not a two-way write-back. As a newer product the brand is less established than Timetastic.

Best for UK SMEs from roughly five to a hundred staff who want a focused, low-cost leave tracker, especially teams moving off a spreadsheet or off a dearer tool to cut the per-user price.

See it with your own team in the trial

Add a few people, set their allowances, book and approve a request, and watch the bank holidays appear on the calendar. 30 days free, no card.

Start free trial

2. Leave Dates · lowest headline price

Leave Dates

From £0.75 / user / month

UK-built · visual year planner · dedicated leave

Strengths The lowest headline price here: the Starter tier is from £0.75 per user / month on annual billing (£1 on monthly), with higher tiers above it. Leave Dates is built around a clean visual wall chart and a personal year chart, supports custom allowances and carry-over of unused leave, and runs a 30-day free trial with no payment details taken up front. It is a well-known, UK-built dedicated leave tool.

Trade-offs The lowest rate needs annual commitment; on monthly billing it matches Book Time Off at £1. The visual planner suits some teams and feels constrained to others who prefer a traditional calendar. The richer features sit on the higher tiers, so the headline £0.75 is not the all-in price for everyone.

Best for Cost-led teams happy to pay annually, and anyone who prefers a visual year-planner layout over a calendar grid.

3. Timetastic · the established name

Timetastic

£1.20 Basic / £2 Pro

UK-built · the best-known dedicated leave tracker

Strengths The most established dedicated leave tracker in the UK, polished and widely used, with a 30-day free trial and no card to start. It runs a separate balance for each leave type, so if you need distinct pots and approval flows per type it does that out of the box. A Pro tier (£2 per user / month) adds further controls on top of Basic.

Trade-offs At £1.20 per user / month on Basic it is the dearest dedicated tracker on headline price, a fifth more than Book Time Off's flat £1, and some features sit on the £2 Pro tier. If all you ever deduct is annual leave and you record other types for visibility, you may be paying for per-type machinery you will not use.

Best for Teams that want the most established brand, or that genuinely need a separate balance and approval flow for every leave type.

4. Vacation Tracker · chat-first leave

Vacation Tracker

$2 / $4 per user / month (USD)

Chat-first leave tracking · priced in US dollars

Strengths Built around Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, so people book and approve leave inside the chat tool they already live in. There is a genuine free plan (one location, one department, one leave type, unlimited users), and paid Core ($2 per user / month, or $1 on annual billing) and Complete ($4 per user / month, or $3 annual) tiers add leave policies, reporting, accruals and multi-level approvals. It runs separate leave policies and balances, so it handles per-type pots that Book Time Off does not.

Trade-offs Pricing is in US dollars, which means currency exposure and VAT handling for a UK buyer, and the paid tiers carry monthly minimums ($50 on Core, $100 on Complete) that hurt very small teams. The free plan's single-location, single-type limit is tight, it is less UK-specific than the British tools, and the 7-day trial is short.

Best for Teams that genuinely need a separate balance per leave type, and Google Workspace-centric teams. (For Slack and Microsoft Teams, Book Time Off covers in-chat booking and approvals itself.)

5. Breathe · leave inside a full HR suite

Breathe

From ~£20 / business / month

UK HR platform · leave is one module among many

Strengths A well-established UK HR platform used by many thousands of organisations, bundling holiday and absence tracking with documents, sickness records and wider HR admin. It prices per business by employee band rather than per user, so for a larger team the all-in cost can compare well against per-user tools once you are using the HR features too. Holiday booking handles bank holidays and carry-over, and there is a 14-day free trial with no card up front.

Trade-offs If all you need is leave, you are paying for a lot you will not use. Per-business banded pricing rises in steps as headcount grows, and add-on modules are charged separately. For pure leave tracking, a dedicated tool is cheaper and simpler to run.

Best for UK SMEs that want one tool for documents, sickness records and HR admin alongside leave, not leave on its own.

6. CharlieHR · HR platform for startups

CharlieHR

Per employee, tiered

UK-built HR platform · design-led · leave plus core HR

Strengths A friendly, design-led UK HR platform that startups and agencies adopt easily, bundling leave with employee records, onboarding, HR documents and performance tooling. It is priced per employee on tiered plans and runs a 7-day free trial with no card. If you want leave and core HR in one modern interface, it is a strong fit.

Trade-offs It is a full HR suite, so it costs materially more per head than a dedicated leave tracker, and the exact per-employee rate depends on tier and team size (check their current pricing page). If leave is the only job you need done, you are paying for breadth you will not use, and the leave-booking flow sits inside a larger product.

Best for UK startups and agencies of roughly ten to fifty people who want leave bundled into a polished core HR system.

How to choose

A short decision guide:

Most small UK teams · Book Time Off. A focused tracker at a flat £1 per user / month, no commitment, automatic UK bank holidays and a one-file Timetastic import.
Squeeze the price · Leave Dates. Cheapest headline rate if you commit annually, or if you prefer its visual year planner.
Per-type balances · Timetastic or Vacation Tracker. Pick these if every leave type needs its own pot and approval flow. (For leave inside Slack or Teams, Book Time Off does that too.)
HR beyond leave · Breathe or CharlieHR. Worth the higher price when leave is one of several HR jobs you are consolidating.

Choosing by team size? See our pick of the best holiday planner for teams under 10.

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Narrowing it down?

For a focused head-to-head of the dedicated trackers, see Leave Dates vs Timetastic vs Book Time Off, the Timetastic alternatives page, or our pick of the best staff holiday booking system. To check entitlement first, try the free annual leave entitlement calculator, and if you are leaving a spreadsheet, read managing staff holidays without spreadsheets.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best leave management software for a UK small business?

For most UK small businesses that mainly need to track who is off, approve requests and keep allowances tidy, a dedicated leave tracker beats a full HR suite on price and simplicity. Our pick is Book Time Off at £1 per user per month, with Leave Dates the value alternative on annual billing and Timetastic the most established name. Breathe and CharlieHR are better only if you need HR features beyond leave. We make Book Time Off and say so throughout.

What is the cheapest leave management software in the UK?

On headline price, Leave Dates is lowest at its Starter tier from £0.75 per user per month on annual billing, though that needs an annual commitment and is £1 on monthly billing. Book Time Off is a flat £1 per user per month on any billing with no minimum. Timetastic is £1.20 on Basic. Vacation Tracker has a genuine free plan limited to one location, one department and one leave type, with paid tiers priced in US dollars.

Is there free leave management software?

Vacation Tracker offers a free-forever plan limited to one location, one department and one leave type. Most other tools, including Book Time Off, run a free trial rather than a free tier: Book Time Off is 30 days free with no card, then £1 per user per month. A spreadsheet is also free but stops scaling once you have clashes, part-timers and carry-over to track. Pick on the total cost at your team size, not just on whether a free tier exists.

Do I need a full HR platform like Breathe or CharlieHR?

Only if you need HR features beyond leave, such as document storage, contracts, performance reviews or onboarding workflows. If your real problem is tracking who is off, approving requests and keeping allowances tidy, a dedicated leave tracker is cheaper and faster to run. Breathe and CharlieHR are worth their cost when leave is one of several HR jobs you are consolidating, not the only one.

Can I import my existing data from Timetastic?

Into Book Time Off, yes. It imports the Timetastic full-organisation export (the .xlsx or .xls file). Uploading it once brings across your departments (with their manager and max-absent limit), your team members (allowance, approver, birthday and start date) and this year's approved leave history. It is an XLSX full-export upload, not a CSV import.

Does Book Time Off work with Microsoft 365?

Yes. Book Time Off offers Microsoft 365 single sign-on, per-user Outlook calendar sync (approved leave is written to that person's Outlook as Out of Office; it adds and updates events only and never reads the calendar), Microsoft Teams notifications on requests, and a daily who's-off Teams digest. There are also read-only iCal/ICS subscribe feeds for Google, Apple and Outlook calendars. A shared organisation-wide Team Leave calendar inside Microsoft 365 is still on the roadmap.

Is leave management software UK GDPR compliant?

Leave records are personal data, so this matters. The major UK-targeted tools (Book Time Off, Timetastic, Leave Dates, Breathe, CharlieHR) are built with UK GDPR in mind: they act as data processors, sign a data processing agreement with you as the data controller, host data in the UK or EU, and let you export and delete it. Before you sign up, check the supplier's privacy policy and data processing agreement, and prefer one that keeps data in the UK or EU rather than transferring it abroad.

Sources

Every competitor fact above was checked against that provider's own site on 5 June 2026; prices change, so verify on the day you decide.

Provider	Checked	Source
Leave Dates (Starter from £0.75 annual / £1 monthly, tiers, 30-day trial, no card)	5 June 2026	leavedates.com/pricing-plans
Timetastic (Basic £1.20, Pro £2, 30-day trial, no card, separate balance per leave type)	5 June 2026	timetastic.co.uk/pricing
Vacation Tracker (free plan; Core $2 / $1 annual, Complete $4 / $3 annual USD; monthly minimums; 7-day trial, no card)	5 June 2026	vacationtracker.io/pricing
Breathe (per-business banded pricing, smallest plan from ~£20/month, 14-day trial, no card)	5 June 2026	breathehr.com pricing
CharlieHR (per-employee tiered HR suite, 7-day trial, no card)	5 June 2026	charliehr.com/pricing
Book Time Off claims (features, pricing, Timetastic XLSX import, Microsoft 365)	5 June 2026	Book Time Off product (see help centre)

About this guide

Written by the Book Time Off editorial team. We build leave management software for UK SMEs, so we make one of the tools listed here and say so throughout; competitor pricing and trial terms were verified against each provider's own site on 5 June 2026.

The best leave management software for UK small businesses