Absence management software records holiday allowances, leave requests and sick days, and shows managers who is away.
This guide ranks twelve products on setup effort, the price after leave rules and time tracking are added, how data leaves, whether you can run it without a partner, and what kind of workforce each one suits.
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In short
What absence management software does
Absence management software tracks employee leave entitlements, requests, approvals and sickness records, calculates balances and carry-over, and shows team availability through a shared calendar, often feeding payroll.
In this order: setup effort, what it really costs, how your data comes back out, whether
you can leave, and who each absence management tool is built for. One rule sits on top of those tests:
Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category, wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. Why those five, and why there is no
score out of ten, is on the how we work page.
Per employee per month, published for two tiers, Enterprise by custom price; free trial
—
Hourly shift teams wanting leave requests inside the rota
Office teams needing accrual rules and entitlement reports
Country is where the vendor is headquartered or contracts from, which is a
different question from where your data is hosted. Where the two tell different stories, the
entry says so.
Leave-only planner with every core feature in the cheapest plan
Ranked #1 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Leave Dates answers the ninety-day question by staying narrow: unlimited employees, allowances in days or hours, pro-rating for starters and leavers, bank holidays for over 230 countries, Excel export and bulk upload are all in the lowest tier.
Real cost arrives with policy depth. Overlap and limit rules, TOIL and calendar sync need Essential, while API, webhooks and SSO need Plus. Nothing here measures hours worked, so pair it with a timesheet tool if you need one.
What stands out
Leave only
Three tiers
UK company
Where it costs you
Covers leave only, with no timesheets or attendance
Slack summaries, calendar sync and limits require the middle tier
Right for
Small firms wanting a dedicated leave calendar without extra HR modules
Wrong for
Teams that also need clocking or timesheets
United KingdomPer user per month, published from the lowest tier; 30-day trial, no card
Munich-based leave tool that grows into time tracking and files
Ranked #2 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Absence.io is run by a GmbH in Munich and is priced per user in three tiers. Starter covers absence and leave management, reports and Microsoft, Google and Slack integrations.
Pro adds time tracking by web, app or terminal, overtime automation, a digital employee file and single sign-on. Complete adds travel expenses, receipt capture, DATEV and the API. The trial runs fourteen days without a card, and the terms let you cancel monthly.
What stands out
Leave and time
Munich GmbH
Tiered plans
Where it costs you
API access and automated workflows sit only in the top tier
Single sign-on is excluded from the cheapest tier
Right for
German-speaking SMEs wanting leave, time tracking and personnel files in one
Wrong for
Firms needing an API without paying for expense modules
GermanyPer user per month in three published tiers; 14-day trial, no card
Warsaw vendor that prices time off as a separate module
Ranked #3 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Calamari separates modules, so a buyer can license only Time Off and add attendance or scheduling later.
The Time Off module lists unlimited absence types, multi-country policies, different public holiday calendars per branch, hours or days as units, multi-step approval flows with back-up approvers, and a restriction engine for notice periods and overlaps. Reports export to Excel and requests to PDF, while CSV import loads employees. SAML is a separate add-on.
What stands out
Modular
Restriction rules
Warsaw
Where it costs you
The price calculator applies a minimum monthly total
Each extra module, such as time and attendance or scheduling, adds its own rate
Right for
Multi-country firms needing detailed leave rules and approval chains
Wrong for
Tiny teams that would pay the monthly minimum
PolandPer employee per month by module, published, with a monthly minimum; 14-day trial
Time off handled inside Slack, Teams or Google Workspace
Ranked #4 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Vacation Tracker is the only product here designed around chat: requests, approvals and notifications go through Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Workspace. Core covers three locations, ten departments, unlimited policies and holidays, notice-period automation and ADP, Zapier, OpenAPI and MCP links.
Complete lifts location limits and adds accruals, hourly tracking, TOIL, multi-level and substitute approvals and scheduled reports. The vendor is a Quebec-registered company, and trial length is fourteen days.
What stands out
Slack and Teams
Monthly minimum
Quebec company
Where it costs you
Both tiers bill a monthly minimum regardless of headcount
The entry tier caps locations at three and departments at ten
Right for
Slack or Teams-centred companies with several office locations
Wrong for
Firms that do not use chat tools daily
CanadaPer user per month in two published tiers, each with a monthly minimum; 14-day trial
Leave tracker with a free plan capped at nine employees
Ranked #5 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Free tierPublished pricingElsewhere
LeaveBoard offers a free plan with a nine-employee cap and unlimited users on Pro, with a per-employee rate that drops about seventeen percent on annual billing. Leave policies, an absence calendar, an employee directory and HR reports sit in both.
Advanced leave policies and priority support require Pro. Integrations named are Microsoft Office 365, Google Calendar, Slack and Apple iCal, and reports export as XLS and CSV. Data sits on servers in France.
What stands out
Free plan
Cheap per head
Servers in France
Where it costs you
Payment is by Visa or Mastercard through Braintree
The vendor does not state its country of establishment
Right for
Companies of nine or fewer staff, or small teams watching cost
Wrong for
Firms needing invoicing, single sign-on or published enterprise terms
Not stated by the vendorFree plan up to nine employees; per employee per month above that, published
Simple UK holiday planner, now part of Citation Group
Ranked #6 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Timetastic sells three plans: Business for unlimited users with a shared calendar and allowance approvals, Pro adding booking limits by leave type plus absence reports, and Rota & Time Clock for shifts and timesheets.
Trial lasts thirty days without a card, and payment is by card through Stripe after trial. The terms state that Timetastic Limited, based in Wilmslow, belongs to the Citation Group. ISO 27001:2022 appears among its listed security features.
What stands out
Holiday planner
Part of a group
Rota add-on
Where it costs you
Part of the Citation Group, so not a standalone independent
Booking limits only warn, and locked dates are listed as coming soon
Right for
UK offices wanting an uncomplicated holiday calendar with mobile apps
Wrong for
Buyers who want an owner-managed, standalone vendor
United KingdomPer user per month in three published plans; 30-day trial, no card
HR suite whose absence module also feeds shift plans
Ranked #7 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
Kenjo is a modern, clean HR system aimed at European SMEs with deskless teams, the kind that find Personio expensive and BambooHR foreign.
Shift planning, time tracking with a kiosk app, absence, onboarding and documents are all present and pleasant to use. The ecosystem around it is smaller: fewer integrations, fewer partners, and less evidence of how it behaves at a thousand employees.
What stands out
Berlin GmbH
Shift planning
Three plans
Where it costs you
Smaller ecosystem and fewer integrations
Less proven at scale
Right for
A small or mid-size company with shift-based, deskless staff
Wrong for
A multinational with many payroll jurisdictions
GermanyPer employee per month by plan, with an on-site price calculator; 14-day trial
Rota software whose leave module starts at the middle plan
Ranked #8 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Planday does rota, availability, swaps, clock-in and the export that payroll actually accepts, with European payroll conventions built in rather than adapted. Staff use the phone app without training, which is the real test.
The pricing model is the catch: a seasonal terrace that doubles its team for four months pays for those people every month it employs them. It has no view on food cost, so pair it with a stock product.
What stands out
Rota first
Absence in Plus
Shift teams
Where it costs you
Covers labour only, nothing about stock or menus
Per-employee pricing punishes seasonal headcount
Right for
Hospitality teams with shift swaps, availability and irregular weekly hours
Wrong for
Operators looking for one system for the whole site
DenmarkPer user per month from a published entry price; five-user minimum; top tier quoted; 30-day trial
Spanish HR suite where time off is one module among many
Ranked #9 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingEurope
Factorial bundles HR, time tracking, expenses and shift planning into one subscription at a price that undercuts the German and Nordic incumbents, which is why it has spread quickly across Southern Europe.
Each module is competent rather than deep — the time tracking will not satisfy a complex shift operation — and support quality varies noticeably between markets. For an SME wanting one system rather than four, that trade is usually worth it.
What stands out
Barcelona
Module-based quote
Time off module
Where it costs you
Depth per module is lighter than the specialists
Support quality varies by market
Right for
A Southern European SME that wants HR, time and expenses in one
Wrong for
A large enterprise with complex org structures
SpainPer user per month from a published starting price; final plan quoted from chosen modules
Ranked #10 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
BambooHR is the product that made small-company HR software pleasant, and the onboarding, e-signature and reporting flows are still among the easiest to use.
It is also unmistakably American: compliance, benefits handling and payroll assume US employment law. For a European employer that means keeping a separate local payroll provider and accepting that the compliance features are decoration.
What stands out
Core includes time off
US dollars
Unlimited policies
Where it costs you
US-centric compliance
European payroll is not really covered
Right for
A US company that wants HR without an implementation project
Wrong for
A European employer needing local payroll compliance
United StatesPer employee per month in three published tiers, priced in US dollars; quote form
Mid-market people platform with time off inside core HR
Ranked #11 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Pricing on requestEurope
HiBob is aimed at companies where culture and engagement are treated as HR outcomes, not just administration, and the product reflects that: clubs, shout-outs, surveys and a social layer alongside the records.
Scale-ups adopt it enthusiastically. It is expensive per seat, the reporting needs configuring before it says anything useful, and a company that only needs contracts and absence tracking is paying for a great deal it will not use.
What stands out
Time off in core HR
Attendance add-on
Payroll sync
Where it costs you
Expensive per seat
Reporting needs configuration to be useful
Right for
A scale-up that cares about engagement as much as administration
Shift scheduler with leave requests as a secondary feature
Ranked #12 of 12 in Best Absence Management Software in 2026.
Published pricingNorth America
Humanity is now sold by TCP, the Plano-based group that bought humanity.com in December 2020. Essentials, up to 250 employees, includes shift swaps, availability and time-off requests, with PTO and custom leave types in the leave management row of the plan table.
Professional adds demand-based scheduling, compliance and labour budgeting, and Enterprise is quoted. Absence reporting is not a stated focus, so test leave balances in the trial.
What stands out
Scheduling first
Owned by TCP
Leave requests
Where it costs you
Built as a shift scheduler, so leave depth is thin
Leave policy features beyond PTO and custom leave types are not described
Right for
Hourly shift teams wanting leave requests inside the rota
Wrong for
Office teams needing accrual rules and entitlement reports
United StatesPer employee per month, published for two tiers, Enterprise by custom price; free trial
Absence management software tracks employee leave entitlements, requests, approvals and sickness records, calculates balances and carry-over, and shows team availability through a shared calendar, often feeding payroll. The differences that matter are rarely in the feature list, so this is
the order we would work through them.
01
Decide whether you need a published price
10 of the 12 tools here publish what they cost; the other 2 quote per organisation. The ones you can compare without a sales call: Leave Dates, Absence.io, Calamari, Vacation Tracker, LeaveBoard, Timetastic, Planday, Factorial, BambooHR, Humanity.
02
Decide how much the jurisdiction matters
These 12 vendors are established in 8 countries across 3 regions (Europe 8, North America 3, Elsewhere 1). That decides whose disclosure law applies to what the vendor holds, wherever the servers are.
Per seat, per module or with a minimum: how leave tools are metered
Leave tools look interchangeable until the invoice arrives, because the meter differs. Leave Dates charges per user with every core feature in the entry tier. Calamari prices Time Off as its own module and applies a monthly minimum total. Vacation Tracker bills a fifty or hundred minimum depending on the tier, which hits a five-person office hardest.
Planday asks for at least five users, and LeaveBoard keeps nine employees at no charge. The cost that hides is the tier boundary: Timetastic keeps rotas in its top plan, and absence.io holds time tracking and single sign-on in the middle one. Compare at your real headcount, not the price per head.
Price your exact headcount including any monthly minimum.
List the features you need and find the tier that unlocks the last one.
Ask whether the trial includes the tier you will actually buy.
Leave-only tool or HR suite: what you pay for
BambooHR lists time-off management and unlimited custom policies in its Core plan, but the price covers an entire HR platform per employee. HiBob includes time off in core HR and sells attendance separately. Factorial includes Core in every plan and tailors the rest by quote, while Kenjo sells an HR suite with shift planning.
A dedicated planner such as Leave Dates or Timetastic costs less, and does nothing else. Suites remove a second login and a second employee list, yet you pay for payroll, recruiting and performance modules you may never open. Decide whether other HR processes are on your roadmap within a year.
List HR processes you will digitise within twelve months.
Compare per-employee cost of a suite against planner plus spreadsheet.
Ask how leave balances reach payroll.
Where staff request leave: chat tool, web app or rota
The place where requests happen changes adoption. Vacation Tracker runs inside Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace, so staff never open another site. Planday and Humanity place absence inside the rota, which works where managers staff shifts but adds little for desk teams.
Kenjo and absence.io add mobile apps and a calendar view. Timetastic offers desktop and mobile apps for managers and staff. Absence handled in the rota prevents a manager from approving leave on a day already short of cover, a point office-based tools cannot match, but it requires you to run the rota there too.
Ask where your staff already spend the working day.
Test a request, approval and rejection end to end during the trial.
Check that the approver sees team cover at the moment of approval.
Policy depth: accruals, TOIL, limits and overlaps
Basic allowances are everywhere, but rules differ sharply. Calamari lists a restriction engine with notice periods, daily caps and no-overlap teams. Leave Dates puts overlaps, limits and TOIL into Essential, and a personalised leave year into Plus. Vacation Tracker holds accruals, hourly tracking and TOIL back for Complete. Timetastic issues alerts when booking limits are crossed rather than blocking the booking.
For shift workers and multi-country firms, test your hardest policy, such as carry-over expiry or a part-time pro-rata, in the trial and not only the demo. Ask each vendor whether the rule is configured by you or needs a support ticket, because a rule that waits on the vendor is a rule you will change less often than the law does. Public holiday sets matter as well: Leave Dates imports bank holidays for over 230 countries, and Calamari keeps different holiday calendars per branch in one account.
Write down your three hardest leave rules before the trial.
Check whether limits block a request or only warn.
Confirm how public holidays are set per country or site.
What goes wrong most often when buying absence management software
Comparing the headline price per user while ignoring monthly minimums that apply to small teams.
Buying an HR suite for leave tracking alone, then using a tenth of it.
Trusting a demo on simple allowances and not testing carry-over, TOIL or part-time pro-rating.
Forgetting that rota-based tools put leave behind a higher plan, as Planday does.
07
Frequently asked questions
6 answers
What is the best absence management software in 2026?
Leave Dates leads our ranking of 12. A single-purpose leave planner from a private limited company in England and Wales.
Unlimited employees, carry-over, Excel export and bulk upload sit in the entry tier, and the higher tiers add limits, overlaps, calendar sync and TOIL. It tracks no hours and writes no timesheets, so a firm that also needs attendance must buy a second product.
Which absence management tools publish their pricing?
10 of the 12, with the pricing model each one publishes:
Leave Dates: Per user per month, published from the lowest tier; 30-day trial, no card.
Absence.io: Per user per month in three published tiers; 14-day trial, no card.
Calamari: Per employee per month by module, published, with a monthly minimum; 14-day trial.
Vacation Tracker: Per user per month in two published tiers, each with a monthly minimum; 14-day trial.
LeaveBoard: Free plan up to nine employees; per employee per month above that, published.
Timetastic: Per user per month in three published plans; 30-day trial, no card.
Planday: Per user per month from a published entry price; five-user minimum; top tier quoted; 30-day trial.
Factorial: Per user per month from a published starting price; final plan quoted from chosen modules.
BambooHR: Per employee per month in three published tiers, priced in US dollars; quote form.
Humanity: Per employee per month, published for two tiers, Enterprise by custom price; free trial.
The other 2 quote per organisation.
Is there a free absence management tool?
LeaveBoard offer a free tier or a free self-hosted edition.
Where are these absence management software vendors established?
In 8 countries across 3 regions: Europe 8, North America 3, Elsewhere 1.
Leave Dates: United Kingdom.
Absence.io: Germany.
Calamari: Poland.
Vacation Tracker: Canada.
LeaveBoard: Not stated by the vendor.
Timetastic: United Kingdom.
Kenjo: Germany.
Planday: Denmark.
Factorial: Spain.
BambooHR: United States.
HiBob: United Kingdom.
Humanity: United States.
What should you use instead of Leave Dates?
Absence.io and Calamari are the next two on this page. Absence.io is for German-speaking SMEs wanting leave, time tracking and personnel files in one; Calamari is for Multi-country firms needing detailed leave rules and approval chains.
Who should not buy Leave Dates?
Teams that also need clocking or timesheets. Covers leave only, with no timesheets or attendance.
If your absence management software product belongs among these 12, tell us what it does and who it is for. Inclusion is an editorial call; what a listing is and is not is set out under software advice.
