Leave Dates vs Timetastic vs Book Time Off (2026 comparison)

Three UK-built dedicated leave trackers, three sensible choices. They are close on the core job of tracking who is off, and separated mostly by price and by one design decision we explain below. We make one of them (Book Time Off), and we are upfront about that throughout. This page lays the three side by side and tells you, honestly, which fits which kind of team.

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Our pick for most UK SMEs

Book Time Off, at a flat £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, it loads UK bank holidays automatically, and it imports your Timetastic data from the full-organisation export. At £1 it also includes Microsoft 365 single sign-on, Outlook calendar sync, Teams notifications and admin reports with CSV export, which Timetastic keeps for its £2 Pro tier. Leave Dates is the better call if you want the lowest possible rate and will commit annually; Timetastic is the better call if you need a separate balance per leave type or its absence trend charts. We explain all three honestly below.

If you have landed here you are almost certainly choosing between these three by name, so we will keep it practical. All three are dedicated leave trackers (not full HR suites), all three are UK-built, and all three run a free trial with no card to start. The genuine separators are price, billing flexibility, and how they model leave types. Here is the picture.

The three at a glance

Pricing and trial terms below were checked against each provider's own site on 5 June 2026. Figures move, so the dated sources are listed at the foot of the page. Book Time Off is in the highlighted column.

	Book Time Off	Leave Dates	Timetastic
Headline price	£1 / user / month	From £0.75 / user / month	£1.20 Basic / £2 Pro
Lowest rate needs	Nothing · flat rate on any billing	Annual commitment (£1 on monthly)	n/a · flat per-user price
Free trial	30 days	30 days	30 days
Card to start	No card	No card	No card
Minimum users	None	Check current plan	Check current plan
Category	Dedicated leave tracker	Dedicated leave tracker	Dedicated leave tracker
Microsoft 365 SSO, Teams & Outlook	Included	Check current plan	Pro plan (£2)
Admin reports with CSV export	Included	Check current plan	Pro plan (£2)
Separate balance per leave type	No · one shared allowance	Check current plan	Yes
UK bank holidays loaded automatically	Yes · GOV.UK feed, per region	Yes	Yes
Built in	UK	UK	UK

The short version: on a flat monthly price with no commitment, Book Time Off and Leave Dates are level at £1 and Timetastic is a fifth dearer on Basic. Leave Dates dips below £1 only if you pay annually. Timetastic is the one of the three that gives every leave type its own balance.

The one real difference

Beyond price, the decision that actually separates these tools is how they handle leave types. It is the thing buyers most often get wrong when comparing them, so it is worth being precise.

Separate balances per type, or one shared allowance?

Timetastic runs a separate balance for each leave type. Book Time Off does not: leave types such as sickness, unpaid or compassionate leave are recorded as categories on the same calendar under one approval workflow, and annual leave is what draws down the allowance (birthday leave can optionally be a non-deducting perk). Most small UK teams only ever deduct annual leave from an allowance and record the rest for visibility, which is exactly what Book Time Off does. If you genuinely need a distinct pot and approval flow per type, that is the one place Timetastic has the edge, and you should weigh it deliberately.

Book Time Off · the flat £1 pick

Book Time Off

£1 / user / month

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

Strengths Calendar and wallchart 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, plus read-only iCal/ICS subscribe feeds (a personal feed and a privacy-aware team feed). It imports the Timetastic full-organisation export, and it is a flat £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. 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 and no Slack integration; 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 at a flat, predictable price with no commitment, especially teams moving off a spreadsheet or off Timetastic 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 wallchart. 30 days free, no card.

Start free trial

Leave Dates · lowest headline price

Leave Dates

From £0.75 / user / month

UK-built · visual year planner · dedicated leave

Strengths The lowest headline price of the three: 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 with a loyal following.

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 every team. Check the current plan for how it handles leave types and any minimums for your size.

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

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. Its defining feature against the other two here is that 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 of the three on headline price, a fifth more than Book Time Off's flat £1, and the features some teams want 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.

Which of the three should you choose?

A quick decision guide, given they are close on the core job:

Choose Book Time Off if you want a focused leave tracker at a flat, predictable £1 per user / month with no commitment and no minimum, automatic UK bank holidays, and a one-file import from Timetastic. This is the right answer for most small UK teams.
Choose Leave Dates if squeezing the headline price is the priority and you are happy to commit annually to reach £0.75, or if you specifically prefer its visual year-planner layout.
Choose Timetastic if you need a separate balance and approval workflow for each leave type, or if having the most established brand in the category matters to your decision.

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Want the wider market, not just these three?

Our best leave management software guide sets these tools against the full UK market, and the Timetastic alternatives page adds Vacation Tracker, Breathe and CharlieHR to the mix. To sanity-check entitlement first, try the free annual leave entitlement calculator.

Moving your data across

If you are coming from Timetastic, moving to Book Time Off does not mean retyping anyone:

In Timetastic, download the full-organisation export (the .xlsx or .xls file).
In Book Time Off, upload that file once.
It 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 paste: the full export carries the structure of your organisation, so the team calendar looks right from day one. For a longer walk-through, see our Timetastic migration guide and the in-app import help article. Coming from Leave Dates or a spreadsheet, you would set the team up directly in Book Time Off rather than via the Timetastic importer.

Frequently asked questions

Which is cheapest: Leave Dates, Timetastic or Book Time Off?

On the lowest headline price, Leave Dates wins: its Starter tier is from £0.75 per user per month on annual billing. But that rate needs an annual commitment, and on monthly billing Leave Dates is £1, the same as Book Time Off. Book Time Off is a flat £1 per user per month on any billing, with no minimum and no annual lock-in. Timetastic is £1.20 per user per month on its Basic plan and £2 on Pro. So for a small team paying monthly with no commitment, Book Time Off and Leave Dates are level on price and Timetastic is the dearest of the three.

What is the real difference between these three leave trackers?

They are close on core leave tracking and separated mostly by price and by one design decision. Timetastic runs a separate balance for each leave type. Book Time Off does not: leave types such as sickness, unpaid or compassionate leave are categories recorded on the same calendar under one approval workflow, and annual leave is what draws down the allowance. Most small UK teams only ever deduct annual leave and record the rest for visibility, which is exactly what Book Time Off does. If you genuinely need a distinct pot and approval flow per leave type, Timetastic has the edge there.

Is Book Time Off really £1 per user per month?

Yes. Book Time Off is £1 per user per month with a 30-day free trial, no card required to start, and no minimum number of users. You pay only for the people you actually add, on monthly or annual billing at the same flat rate.

Can I move my Timetastic data into Book Time Off?

Yes. Book Time Off 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.

Do all three load UK bank holidays automatically?

All three are UK-built dedicated leave trackers that handle UK bank holidays. Book Time Off loads them automatically from the official GOV.UK feed for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, picks the right region per person, and never deducts them from anyone's allowance. Check each provider's current settings for exactly how regional bank holidays and part-time treatment are handled for your team.

Which should I choose for a small UK team?

If you want the lowest possible rate and are happy to commit annually, Leave Dates at its Starter tier is cheapest. If you need a separate balance and approval flow for every leave type, Timetastic is the better fit. For most small UK teams that mainly need to track who is off, approve requests and keep annual leave allowances tidy at a flat, predictable price with no commitment, Book Time Off at £1 per user per month is the one we would point you to. We make it, and we have said so throughout.

Sources

Every competitor fact above was checked against that provider's own current site on 5 June 2026. Prices and trial terms 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
Book Time Off claims (features, flat £1 pricing, Timetastic XLSX import, Microsoft 365)	5 June 2026	Book Time Off product (see help centre)

About this comparison

Written by the Book Time Off editorial team. We build leave management software for UK SMEs, so we make one of the three tools listed here and have been upfront about that throughout. Competitor pricing and trial terms were verified against each provider's own site on 5 June 2026; we describe only what each tool actually does and concede where a competitor is the better fit.