Book Time Off, a direct comparable to Timetastic at a lower price of £1 per user / month (and a 30-day free trial with no card required), is the obvious alternative we'd point most small UK teams to. Its import-from-Timetastic function allows for an incredibly simple switch, and its reliable, elegant leave tracker covers all the normal functions of Timetastic and most of the functions Timetastic hides behind its £2 Pro plan: Microsoft 365 single sign-on, Outlook calendar sync, Teams and Slack notifications, and insightful leave reporting. It's genuinely the right answer when leave tracking is the job you need done and you want premium features without premium pricing. Where it is not, we say so below.
If you're reading this, you've probably already used Timetastic or shortlisted it, and you're checking whether something fits your team or your budget better. The honest position is that the dedicated leave trackers (Book Time Off, Leave Dates, Timetastic and Vacation Tracker) are close on core features and separated mostly by price and by one design decision we explain below. The HR suites (Breathe and CharlieHR) sit in a slightly different category - they're more capable, more expensive and better if you need something more complex and broader than just holiday tracking.
One thing to get straight early:
Timetastic is a genuinely good place to start for a lot of small businesses. In fact, it was our first upgrade when we moved from a spreadsheet. It gave us the basic functions of booking leave, tracking holidays and seeing who's off and when, without the hassle of broken spreadsheet formulae and conflicting versions. We can't fault it for those functions, but the premium price on the Pro plan needed to access the functions we really wanted, like plugging it into Outlook, Google and Slack calendars, as well as generating reports on leave patterns, really hit hard for a small business looking to keep costs under control.
For the full, screen-by-screen picture, read our honest Timetastic review, with screenshots.
Why teams look for a Timetastic alternative
When something isn't broken, people rarely try to fix it, but it's 2026 and what worked years ago is costing small businesses today:
- Cost at scale - Timetastic Basic runs at £1.20 per person, and £2 for its Pro plan. Small per-person amounts stack up, however, and alternatives to the Pro plan can now cost up to 50% less.
- Useful features sit behind Pro - Burnout alerts, absence analytics, single sign-on and accrued leave are basic features for holiday tracking software, yet they sit behind Timetastic's Pro plan and higher pricing.
- One department per person - Timetastic maps each person to a single department, which we found to be awkward when someone genuinely sits across two teams or offices (or both).
- You only use it for leave - If the calendar and the approvals are all you realistically need, cheaper trackers now do the same job for less.
None of these makes Timetastic the wrong choice on its own, but it's worth checking whether a cheaper tool could save you money and still offer more of what you need from your annual leave tracking software, as a small business.
The alternatives 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 first row.
| Tool | Price | Free trial | Card to start | Pricing model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book Time Off | £1 / user / month | 30 days | No card | Flat per user, no minimum - dedicated leave tracker |
| Leave Dates | From £0.75/user/month (tiers to £1.88, annual billing) | 30 days | No card | Per user, tiered (annual billing for lowest rate) - dedicated leave tracker |
| Timetastic | £1.20 Basic / £2 Pro / user / month | 30 days | No card | Per user - dedicated leave tracker |
| Vacation Tracker | $2 Core / $4 Complete (USD) / user / month | 7 days | No card | Per user, USD, monthly minimums - free tier available |
| Breathe | From £22 / business / month | 14 days | No card | Per business by employee band - full HR suite |
| CharlieHR | From £20/mo, tiered | 7 days | No card | Per employee - full HR suite |
The takeaway - on a flat, predictable per-user price for leave alone, Book Time Off and Leave Dates are the value picks (although Leave Dates requires annual billing for its lowest rate), Timetastic is 20% more expensive on Basic, Vacation Tracker is priced in dollars with monthly minimums, and Breathe and CharlieHR are in a different price bracket because they do far more than just holiday tracking.
Book Time Off - the £1 pick for holiday tracking
Book Time Off
£1 / user / month (free trial - no card required)Premium features included - Unlike Timetastic, Book Time Off includes many premium features as standard without a premium price tag. Carry-forward of unused allowance runs with a company-wide limit and an optional expiry window. 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. You can add Book Time Off to Google, Apple or Outlook calendars for both you and your team through read-only iCal/ICS subscribe feeds. And admin-only reports summarise leave, so you can track busy leave periods like Christmas or summer months as well as potential patterns by department or by leave type. Importantly, it imports the Timetastic full-organisation export for a simple switch that takes moments, and it's only £1 per user / month with a 30-day free trial, no card and no minimum users.
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.
Leave Dates - lowest headline price
Leave Dates
From £0.75 / user / monthWeighing up Leave Dates and Timetastic specifically? We've put them side by side in a dedicated Leave Dates vs Timetastic head-to-head, with the price tier by tier and the visual-planner-vs-calendar difference. If Leave Dates itself is the one you're weighing up leaving, our Leave Dates alternatives guide covers that annual-billing tier trap in full.
Vacation Tracker - Slack and Teams first
Vacation Tracker
$2 / $4 per user / month (USD)Breathe - leave inside a broader HR suite
Breathe
From £22 / business / month (Micro plan, 1-10 employees)CharlieHR - a larger HR platform for startups
CharlieHR
From £20/month for small teams, tiered by headcountShould I really be switching?
Timetastic is a great product, so don't just switch without giving it serious consideration. Here's a checklist with a direct comparison to our top pick to help you choose:
- Value the big brand name
- Don't mind paying more for the Basic plan
- Are happy for the premium features to sit on a Pro plan
- Would rather spend more than switch
- Prefer to save 20% on the Basic plan and 50% on the Pro plan
- Still want all the same usual features
- Also want the premium features, like MS / Google integrations and analytics, included as standard
- Don't mind a few clicks to switch from Timetastic
If most of your list falls in the right-hand column, the switch is straightforward and the saving is real. If several fall on the left, Timetastic may still be the better fit for now.
Switching from Timetastic
Moving off Timetastic is the part people expect to be painful, and Book Time Off is the clear winner on this, with no need to retype names, dates and even existing booked or requested leave. It's as simple as:
- 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, so it carries the structure of your organisation, not just a flat list of names, meaning the team calendar looks right immediately. For a longer walk-through, see our Timetastic migration guide and the in-app import help article.
Our wider best leave management software guide sets these tools in the context of the whole UK market, and you can always take Book Time Off for a spin, free of charge for 30 days, to see how you get on.
Frequently asked questions
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. No Pro plans or premium upgrades - everything's included at one price and you only pay for the people you actually add.
Yes. In a few quick clicks, 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's an XLSX full-export upload, not a CSV import.
No, and this is the honest difference to know. In Book Time Off, 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. Birthday leave can optionally be a non-deducting perk. Timetastic and Vacation Tracker run a separate balance per leave type, so if you genuinely need a distinct pot and approval flow for each type, they have the edge.
On headline price, Leave Dates is lowest at its Starter tier from £0.75 per user per month, but it's billed annually. 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. Breathe and CharlieHR are full HR suites priced well above dedicated leave trackers.
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.
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 personal feed and a privacy-aware team feed).
Book Time Off offers a 30-day free trial with no card, then £1 per user per month, rather than a free-forever tier. Among the alternatives, Vacation Tracker has a free plan limited to one location, one department and one leave type, and Leave Dates and the others run free trials. Pick on the total cost at your team size, not just on whether a free tier exists.
Sources
Every competitor fact above was checked on 23 July 2026. Timetastic, Leave Dates and Vacation Tracker figures were unchanged since our last check; Breathe's and CharlieHR's entry-level prices had moved, so those are updated below. Prices and trial terms change, so verify on the day you decide.
| Provider | Checked | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Timetastic (Basic £1.20, Pro £2, 30-day trial, no card, per-type caps on Pro) | 23 July 2026 | timetastic.co.uk/pricing |
| Leave Dates (Starter from £0.75 annual / £1 monthly, Essentials from £1.50, Plus from £1.88, 30-day trial, no card) | 23 July 2026 | leavedates.com/pricing-plans |
| Vacation Tracker (free plan; Core $2, Complete $4 USD; monthly minimums; 7-day trial, no card) | 23 July 2026 | vacationtracker.io/pricing |
| Breathe (per-business banded pricing, Micro plan from £22/month for 1-10 employees, 14-day trial, no card) | 23 July 2026 | breathehr.com pricing |
| CharlieHR (per-employee tiered HR suite from £20/month for small teams, 7-day trial, no card) | 23 July 2026 | charliehr.com/pricing |
| Book Time Off claims (features, pricing, Timetastic XLSX import, Microsoft 365) | 23 July 2026 | Book Time Off product (see help centre) |