Book Time Off is the better buy for most UK SMEs that want a focused leave tracker: a flat £1 per user / month that already includes Microsoft 365 single sign-on, Outlook calendar sync, Teams notifications, iCal feeds and admin reports with CSV export, the features Timetastic reserves for its £2 Pro tier. Pick Timetastic Pro if you specifically need absence trend charts and insights, Slack, a public API, or a separate counted-down balance for each leave type. Both run a 30-day free trial with no card.
Full feature comparison
Timetastic plan features below are taken from their published pricing on 5 June 2026; Book Time Off features are verified in the live product. Book Time Off is the highlighted column.
Being straight about the gaps: absence trend charts, Slack and per-leave-type balance pots are not in Book Time Off today. If you need those, Timetastic Pro has the edge. For everything else, you pay half.
| Feature | Book Time Off £1 / user / mo |
Timetastic Basic £1.20 / user / mo |
Timetastic Pro £2 / user / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday leave management | |||
| Shared calendar & wallchart | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-click email approvals | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom leave types | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Half-day bookings | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Departments with capacity limits | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| UK bank holidays (GOV.UK feed) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Carry-forward of unused leave | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Group bookings & cancellation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Blocked / locked dates | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk admin edits | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations, SSO & reporting | |||
| Microsoft 365 single sign-on | Yes | No | Yes |
| Outlook calendar sync | Yes | No | Yes |
| Microsoft Teams notifications | Yes | No | Yes |
| Daily who's-off digest | Yes · Teams | No | Yes |
| iCal feeds (Google & Apple Calendar) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Admin reports with CSV export | Yes | No | Yes |
| One-click import from Timetastic | Yes · XLSX | No | No |
| Where Timetastic goes further | |||
| Absence trend charts & insights | No | No | Yes |
| Burnout / leave-not-taken alerts | No | No | Yes |
| Slack notifications | No | No | Yes |
| Public API | No | No | Yes |
| Separate balance per leave type | No · one shared allowance | Yes | Yes |
| Day-by-day accrual | No · fixed allowances | No | Yes |
| Per-person work patterns | No · company-wide week | Yes | Yes |
| International public holidays | UK only | 3,000+ regions | 3,000+ regions |
| Native iOS / Android apps | Web app (PWA) | Yes | Yes |
| Price | |||
| Per user / month | £1 flat | £1.20 | £2 |
What you get at £1 that Timetastic charges Pro for
Timetastic's Basic plan at £1.20 covers the core leave job: a shared calendar, allowances, approvals and the mobile and desktop apps. To get single sign-on and the platform integrations, you move up to Pro at £2. Book Time Off folds those into its single £1 plan, explained in full in our Microsoft Teams and Outlook leave management guide:
- Microsoft 365 single sign-on · staff sign in with their work Microsoft account, so there is no extra password to manage.
- Per-user Outlook calendar sync · once someone connects Outlook, their approved leave is written to their own calendar as Out of Office automatically, with no double entry.
- Microsoft Teams notifications and a daily who's-off digest · approved leave can post to a Teams channel, and a morning digest of who is off can land in Teams, so the team sees it without opening another app. Private leave types post as a generic "Off".
- iCal subscribe feeds · a read-only personal feed and a privacy-aware team feed give Google Calendar and Apple Calendar users the same view, through a revocable link.
- Admin reports with CSV export · a reports view summarising approved leave taken per person and per leave type, for this leave year, last year, this calendar year or a custom range, filterable by department and exportable to CSV.
Connect Outlook, post to Teams, run a report and export it to CSV. 30 days free, no card required.
Where Timetastic still wins
This is the part that makes a comparison worth reading. Timetastic is an established product with a deeper feature set in a few specific areas. If any of these is core to how you work, Timetastic, usually its £2 Pro plan, is the better fit, and we would tell you so:
- Absence trends and insights. Timetastic Pro charts absence across the year and surfaces patterns. Book Time Off reports are totals tables with CSV export, not charts or trend lines. If you want visual analytics out of the box, Timetastic leads here.
- Burnout alerts. Pro can flag people at risk of burnout or sitting on a large unused balance late in the year. Book Time Off does not raise that flag automatically.
- Slack. Timetastic posts to Slack. Book Time Off covers Microsoft Teams but does not have a Slack integration, so a Slack-first team is better served by Timetastic today.
- Public API. Timetastic exposes an API for integrators and payroll bureaus. Book Time Off does not have a public API yet, so if you need to pull leave data programmatically, that is a real gap.
- A separate balance for each leave type. Timetastic counts each leave type down its own pot. Book Time Off uses one shared allowance, where each type either deducts from it or is recorded without deducting. Most small teams only count annual leave against an allowance, but if you genuinely need a standalone "5 sick days" counter per person, Timetastic does that and Book Time Off does not.
- Day-by-day accrual and per-person work patterns. Timetastic Pro can accrue leave through the year and give each person a work schedule with lunch sessions. Book Time Off deliberately uses fixed annual allowances and a company-wide working week.
- International coverage and native apps. Timetastic supports public holidays for over 3,000 regions and ships native iOS and Android apps. Book Time Off targets the UK (the GOV.UK feed for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and is a fast responsive web app you can add to a phone home screen, not a native app.
We build Book Time Off, so we have a stake in this. That is exactly why the section above is specific rather than vague. A comparison that pretends a competitor has no advantages is not worth trusting, and the places Timetastic genuinely leads are real.
The price difference
Pricing checked against each provider's own site on 5 June 2026:
| Team size | Book Time Off (£1) | Timetastic Basic (£1.20) | Timetastic Pro (£2) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 people / month | £10 | £12 | £20 |
| 20 people / month | £20 | £24 | £40 |
| 50 people / month | £50 | £60 | £100 |
Against Timetastic Basic the saving is modest but real, and it compounds month after month. Against Pro, the plan you would need for single sign-on and the integrations, Book Time Off is half the price while including those same integrations and reporting. For a team of 20, that is roughly £240 a year less than Pro.
Which should you choose?
Choose Book Time Off if you are a UK small or medium business that wants a focused, low-cost leave tracker and values getting single sign-on, Outlook, Teams and reporting without stepping up to a pricier tier. It is the right call for most teams of roughly five to a hundred people, especially anyone moving off a spreadsheet or off Timetastic to cut the per-user price. Your Timetastic data comes across in one upload.
Choose Timetastic Pro if absence trend charts and insights, burnout alerts, Slack, a public API, per-leave-type balances or day-by-day accrual are things you will actually use. Those are genuine strengths, and no amount of price difference makes up for a feature your process depends on.
If you have decided to move, the switching guide shows how the one-file import works. For the wider field, see the Timetastic alternatives and best leave management software comparisons.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Book Time Off is a flat £1 per user per month on any billing, with no minimum. Timetastic is £1.20 per user per month on its Basic plan and £2 on its Pro plan. For a team of 20 that is around £4 a month less than Basic, and around £20 a month less than Pro, for the core job of tracking leave. Both run a 30-day free trial with no card required.
On the features most UK teams use every week, yes. Microsoft 365 single sign-on, per-user Outlook calendar sync, Microsoft Teams notifications and a daily who's-off digest, iCal subscribe feeds for Google and Apple Calendar, and an admin reports view with CSV export are all included in the single £1 plan. Timetastic keeps those for its £2 Pro tier. Where Pro still goes further is absence trend charts and insights, burnout alerts, Slack, a public API and per-leave-type balance pots. Book Time Off does not have those, and we say so plainly.
Yes. Staff can sign in with Microsoft 365 single sign-on. Each person's approved leave syncs to their own Outlook calendar automatically as Out of Office. Approved leave can post to a Microsoft Teams channel, and a daily who's-off digest can be sent into Teams. There are also read-only iCal subscribe feeds so anyone on Google Calendar or Apple Calendar can see the same leave. All of this is included at £1 per user per month.
Several things, and they are real. Timetastic Pro offers absence trend charts and insights, burnout alerts, a Slack integration and a public API, none of which Book Time Off has yet. Timetastic also gives each leave type its own counted-down balance, accrues leave day by day, supports a per-person work schedule with lunch sessions, covers public holidays for over 3,000 regions worldwide, and has native iOS and Android apps. Book Time Off uses one shared allowance with deduct or record categories, fixed annual allowances, a company-wide working week, the GOV.UK feed for UK bank holidays, and a fast responsive web app. If you need the Timetastic features above, Timetastic is the better fit.
Yes, in one upload. Download the full-organisation export from Timetastic (the .xlsx or .xls file) and upload it once into Book Time Off. It brings across your departments with their manager and max-absent limit, your team members with their allowance, approver, birthday and start date, and this year's approved leave history. It is an XLSX full-export upload, so the structure of your organisation comes with it and the calendar looks right from day one.
Sources
Competitor pricing and plan features were checked against the provider's own site on 5 June 2026. Prices and terms change, so verify on the day you decide.
| Provider | Checked | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Timetastic (Basic £1.20, Pro £2; Pro adds SSO, platform integrations including Teams, absence insights, burnout alerts, capped leave types, accrued leave) | 5 June 2026 | timetastic.co.uk/pricing |
| Timetastic (features: calendar sync, work schedules, public holidays for 3,000+ regions, Slack) | 5 June 2026 | timetastic.co.uk/features |
| Book Time Off (flat £1 pricing; SSO, Outlook sync, Teams notifications and digest, iCal feeds, admin reports with CSV, Timetastic XLSX import) | 5 June 2026 | Book Time Off live product |