What is the best leave management software in 2026?
The one that accrues PTO the way your policy says, approves requests where your team already works, and doesn't hide a minimum fee. For 20 employees, a dedicated tool runs $30 to $100 a month.
Leave management software (also called a PTO tracker or time off tracker) replaces the shared spreadsheet and the "can I take Friday off?" email thread. Employees request time off from their phone or from Slack, managers approve in one click, balances update on their own, and everyone sees who's out this week. The hard part isn't the request form. It's the math: accrual rates, carryover caps, part-timers, and state rules on what happens to unused PTO.
The short answer: Timetastic is the best pick for most small teams, simple and cheap, from $1.50 per user a month. Vacation Tracker is the one to get if your team lives in Slack or Microsoft Teams and you need accruals. BambooHR makes sense when you want leave inside a full HR system. Factorial bundles leave with time tracking and scheduling, and Jibble is free for unlimited users if you mostly need a time clock.
Every cost on this page uses the same baseline: a team of 20 employees tracking paid time off, per month, before tax. That's the only fair way to compare a per-user price, a monthly minimum and a flat fee.
Our ranking is editorial: a sponsored spot is always labeled on its card, and no affiliate link ever changes a score.
The best leave management software for your situation
The 5 leave management tools compared
The full ranking. The "20 employees" column shows what a 20-person team pays per month, including monthly minimums. Rank follows the job most readers are hiring for (accurate PTO balances for a small or midsize team, with as little admin as possible), not the score alone.
| Best for | Monthly cost for 20 employees | Free plan | Team size | Visit | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Timetastic | Best for small teams | $30 on Business, $50 on Pro | 4.3/5 | From $1.50/user/month | — | Teams of 5 to 100, offices and agencies | Visit → |
| 2 | Vacation Tracker | Best for Slack and Microsoft Teams | $50 on Core, $100 on Complete | 4.1/5 | Core $2/user, $50 minimum | — | Remote and hybrid teams on Slack or Teams | Visit → |
| 3 | BambooHR | Best inside a full HR system | $250 flat on Core | 4.2/5 | Core $250/month up to 25 | — | Growing companies of 20 to 500 | Visit → |
| 4 | Factorial | Best all-in-one for time and leave | From $160 (quote) | 3.7/5 | From $8/user, quote after demo | — | Office teams of 20 to 200 | Visit → |
| 5 | Jibble | Best free option for time tracking teams | $0 on the free plan | 3.7/5 | Free, unlimited users | ✓ | Field and hourly teams that clock in | Visit → |
Prices before tax, read on each vendor's official pricing page in 2026, in US dollars. Tools already ranked on other Labs pages keep the same score and prices everywhere.
Is your tool missing from this page? Email us: hello@hackceleration.com
How we compared and scored
Almost every page ranking for "best leave management software" is written by a vendor, and most of them put their own product first. The directories list dozens of tools with a star rating and no math. None of them tells you that a $2 per user tool can bill you $50 a month for a team of ten, or which plan actually includes accruals.
We compared official pricing pages, vendor documentation on accruals, carryover and integrations, and hundreds of user reviews, reading the negative ones first. Every price is converted to a 20-person team per month. absence.io is a solid tool but prices in euros only, and Lucca and PayFit are built for French payroll, so they live on our French page. BambooHR's leave features ship with its HR plans, so we count the plan you'd actually buy.
Accrual and policy accuracy carries the most weight. A tracker that gets a balance wrong costs you more in payouts, disputes and payroll corrections than any subscription.
- Accrual and policy accuracyAccrual rates, carryover caps, part-timers, custom leave types, public holidays.30%
- Payroll and integrationsPayroll sync or export, Slack, Teams, Google and Outlook calendars.20%
- Price and transparencyPublic pricing, billing unit, monthly minimums and add-ons.20%
- SetupTime to set up policies and get every employee on board.15%
- SupportResponse times, help with policy setup, product updates.15%
No affiliate link ever changes a score or a rank.
Timetastic
Timetastic is a UK-built tool that does one thing very well: it shows who's off and keeps everyone's allowance straight. Employees book leave from the web, the mobile app or Slack, the manager gets a notification, and the team wallchart updates instantly. Setup takes an afternoon. That simplicity is why reviewers keep coming back to the same word: easy.
The pricing is the most honest in this ranking. Business is $1.50 per user a month, Pro is $2.50, and the Rota & Time Clock plan is $5.50 if you also need shifts and clocking in. You pay month to month with no contract, and the 30-day free trial needs no card. For 20 people, that's $30 or $50 a month. Charities and B Corps get 50% off.
Where it falls short: approvals are single-level, so a company that needs a team lead and then HR to sign off will struggle. Departments don't nest, which gets awkward past a hundred people, and there's no built-in time tracking on the cheaper plans. One small-business reviewer said switching saved them around £100 a month, which tells you who it's built for.
Tip: set up your leave year, carryover cap and public holiday calendar before you invite anyone. Import opening balances on the first day of your leave year, not halfway through.
- Cheapest paid plan in this ranking
- Month to month, no contract
- 30-day free trial without a card
- ✓Set up in an afternoon
- ✓Clear team wallchart and mobile app
- ✓Transparent per-user pricing
- ✗Single-level approvals only
- ✗Flat departments, no hierarchy
- ✗No time clock below the Rota plan
The right call for most teams under 100 people with simple approval chains. If you need two-step approvals or deep HR features, look further down.
Vacation Tracker
Vacation Tracker lives where your team already talks. Requests, approvals, balance checks and "who's out today" summaries all happen inside Slack or Microsoft Teams, with sync to Google or Outlook calendars. For a remote team, that removes the one thing that kills every leave tool: people forgetting to open it.
The catch is in the pricing. Core is $2 per user a month, but there's a $50 monthly minimum, so any team under 25 people pays $50. Complete is $4 per user with a $100 minimum. And the feature most companies need, automatic accruals, is only on Complete. For a 20-person team that accrues PTO each month, the real price is $100 a month, not $40. Yearly billing takes 10% off, and the free trial runs 14 days.
Once you're on Complete, it handles accrual rates, carryover, multiple locations with their own holidays, and custom leave types well. Payroll sync is limited, so expect to export reports for your payroll provider.
Tip: if your policy is a flat yearly allowance with no monthly accrual, Core may be all you need. Model your policy during the trial before you pick the plan.
- Requests and approvals inside Slack or Teams
- Accruals and carryover on Complete
- Multi-location holiday calendars
- ✓Highest adoption for chat-first teams
- ✓Fast to roll out
- ✓Handles several locations cleanly
- ✗$50 and $100 monthly minimums
- ✗Accruals only on the $4 plan
- ✗Payroll mostly by export
The best tool when Slack or Teams is your office. Budget for Complete if you accrue PTO, and remember the minimum if your team is small.
BambooHR
BambooHR isn't a leave tracker. It's a full HR system with one of the most capable time off modules on the market. Accrual policies can follow tenure tiers, part-time hours and multiple employee groups, balances project forward so employees see what they'll have by their trip, and every request leaves an audit trail. If you've outgrown a spreadsheet and a standalone tracker at the same time, this is where many companies land.
You pay for the whole platform. Up to 25 employees, Core is a flat $250 a month, Pro $425 and Elite $650. Above 25, it's $10, $17 or $25 per employee a month. Payroll, benefits administration and time tracking are add-ons priced on request. For 20 people tracking PTO, that's $250 a month, five to eight times a dedicated tool.
Reviewers praise the clean interface and the depth of time off policies. The usual complaints are price, add-ons for features people expected in the base plan, and reporting that needs some work to get exactly right.
Tip: if leave is your only pain today, start with a dedicated tool and move to an HR system when you also need onboarding and performance. If you buy BambooHR, set up accrual policies by employee group from day one.
- Tenure-based accrual tiers
- Balance projection for future dates
- Full HR records in the same place
- ✓Most flexible accrual policies here
- ✓Strong audit trail
- ✓Clean interface employees like
- ✗$250 a month even for a small team
- ✗Payroll and time tracking cost extra
- ✗Overkill if leave is your only need
The pick when you want a real HR system and time off is part of it. For leave alone, it costs far more than it needs to.
Factorial
Factorial is an all-in-one HR platform from Barcelona with a strong presence across Europe and a growing one in the US. Time off sits in its Time module, next to time tracking and scheduling: requests, approvals, team calendar, balances and a mobile app employees actually use. Reviewers like having leave and time tracking in the same place, with no second tool to maintain.
Pricing is the weak spot. The page says from $8 per user a month, but real plans are built after a demo and modules are added on top, so you can't price it without a quote. For 20 employees, that means from $160 a month before modules, on a quote. Some users also complain that features moved into paid add-ons over time.
The most serious complaint is about balances over time: an HR manager explained she couldn't reliably rebuild an exact balance once leave had piled up over several years. Others find policy updates slow to arrive. If your team carries a lot of leave from year to year, that's the first thing to check.
Tip: in the demo, ask to see one employee's full history with carryover across two leave years, then ask for every line of the quote module by module.
- Leave, time tracking and scheduling together
- Core HR included in every plan
- Mobile app employees like
- ✓One tool for time and leave
- ✓Quick to roll out
- ✓Friendly for non-HR managers
- ✗Price only after a demo
- ✗Multi-year balances reported as unreliable
- ✗Features moved to paid add-ons
A decent all-in-one for office teams with simple policies. If carryover matters, test the balance history before you sign.
Jibble
Jibble is first a time tracking tool: employees clock in from their phone or computer, and managers get timesheets. Its free plan is genuinely free, forever, with unlimited users, which makes it the cheapest way to get a time clock and simple leave requests in the same place.
The leave side is where you need to be careful. Accruals appear in Jibble's feature list, but the free plan doesn't clearly say they're included, and several comparisons put accruals on paid plans. If you need balances that grow automatically each month, confirm which plan covers it before you rely on the free one.
For a small team that only needs "who's off" visibility and a record of requests, the free plan does the job. For accurate PTO balances with carryover, a dedicated tool like Timetastic or Vacation Tracker is a safer bet.
Tip: use Jibble's free plan for clocking in and keep a dedicated leave tool if your accrual policy is more than a flat yearly allowance.
- Free forever, unlimited users
- Time clock on phone or desktop
- Timesheets included
- ✓No cost to start
- ✓Good for hourly and field teams
- ✓Clocking and leave in one app
- ✗Accruals not clearly in the free plan
- ✗Leave is secondary to time tracking
- ✗Weak on complex policies
A great free time clock with basic leave on top. For real PTO accruals, pick a dedicated tracker.
What your leave software really costs, and what inflates the bill
The per-user price on the pricing page tells you very little. What matters is the billing unit, the monthly minimum, which plan has accruals, and what you add for payroll.
The cost for 20 employees
Minimums and the accrual trap
Add-ons and payroll
- Write down your policy before any demo: accrual rate, cap, carryover, waiting period.
- Price your current headcount and 30% more.
- Check which plan includes accruals, not just which one is cheapest.
- Confirm how time off reaches your payroll provider.
- Set up public holidays for every state or country you employ in.
- Import balances on the first day of your leave year.
Does your tracker get balances right? Six checks
Most comparisons stop at features. The real risk is a wrong balance: an employee who leaves with unpaid PTO, a payout that doesn't match the policy, or a dispute you can't document. Run these cases during the trial, with your own policy.
The accrual rate
PolicySet up your real policy, for example 15 days a year accruing per pay period, and check one employee's balance after three months. Then add someone who started mid-month and see whether the tool prorates the way your handbook says.
- Case to run
- A mid-month hire
Carryover and caps
PolicyMost policies cap how much PTO rolls into the next year. Create a balance above the cap, roll the year over in the trial, and confirm the excess is handled the way your policy says: lost, paid out, or kept with an expiry date.
- Watch for
- Excess above the cap
State rules on unused PTO
LegalThere's no federal requirement to offer paid vacation, but some states, like California, treat accrued vacation as earned wages that must be paid out when someone leaves, and don't allow use-it-or-lose-it policies. California does allow a reasonable cap on accrual instead, so employees stop earning once they hit it. If you employ in several states, check that the tool lets you run different policies per location.
- Set up
- One policy per state if needed
Part-timers and hours
BalancesPart-time employees often accrue by hours worked, not by days. Create a 24-hour-a-week employee and check the balance in hours. Tools that only count days will round in ways that add up over a year.
- Case to run
- A 24-hour week
The payroll handoff
PayrollThree levels exist: payroll in the same system (BambooHR with its payroll add-on), an integration with your payroll provider, or a report you export each pay period. Ask your payroll provider what format it accepts before the demo, and run one full pay period with sick leave and unpaid leave in it.
- Ask payroll for
- The import format
Opening balances
SetupThe classic launch mistake is importing balances in the middle of a leave year, with requests already approved but not yet taken. Start on the first day of your leave year or a pay period, have each manager sign off on the opening balances, and keep your old spreadsheet read-only for a full year.
- Best time to start
- Day one of the leave year
Leave is sorted, what comes next
These pages go further on a related question: your whole HR stack, shift scheduling or payroll.
BambooHR, Rippling, Factorial and more compared.
Your time off lives inside a shift scheduleThe best employee scheduling softwareShifts, time clocks and hourly teams.
You want to run payroll yourselfThe best payroll softwareOur general payroll comparison.
You're a small businessThe best small business payroll softwareWhat's enough for a handful of employees.
You're a growing SMBThe best payroll software for SMBsMore states, more rules, more checks.
You're an accountantPayroll software for accountantsTo run payroll for your clients.
Leave management software · FAQ
Is there a free leave management software?
Yes, with limits. Jibble is free forever for unlimited users, but it's a time clock first and the free plan doesn't clearly include accruals. Timetastic has no free plan but a 30-day free trial without a card, which is enough to run a full month of real requests.How much does PTO tracking software cost per employee?
Between $1.50 and $4 per user a month for a dedicated tool: Timetastic from $1.50, Vacation Tracker $2 or $4. Watch the minimums: Vacation Tracker bills at least $50 a month. HR systems cost more, like BambooHR at $250 a month flat for up to 25 employees on Core.Can I track PTO in Excel?
You can, and many small teams start there. It breaks when you add monthly accruals, carryover caps, part-timers and several managers approving requests. The real cost is the audit trail: a spreadsheet doesn't record who approved what and when, which is what you need in a dispute or a payout.Does leave management software integrate with payroll?
Sometimes. BambooHR runs payroll as an add-on in the same system. Most dedicated trackers, like Timetastic and Vacation Tracker, export reports you send to your payroll provider each period. Ask your provider which format it imports before you choose.Do I have to pay out unused PTO when an employee leaves?
It depends on the state. There's no federal rule, but states like California treat accrued vacation as wages that must be paid out at termination. Your tracker should show accurate balances on the last day, so pick one that keeps an audit trail and lets you set policies per state.What's the difference between a PTO tracker and an HRIS?
A PTO tracker handles requests, approvals and balances. An HRIS adds employee records, onboarding, performance and often payroll. If time off is your only problem, a tracker costs five to eight times less. If you want everything in one place, see our HRIS comparison.Can employees request time off from Slack or Microsoft Teams?
Yes. Vacation Tracker is built for it: requests, approvals and daily "who's out" summaries happen inside Slack or Teams. Timetastic also lets employees book leave from Slack. For remote teams, this is the feature that decides whether people actually use the tool.How long does it take to set up leave management software?
An afternoon for a simple tool like Timetastic, a few days for Vacation Tracker with several locations, and a few weeks for an HR system like BambooHR. Most of the time goes into writing down your policy and checking opening balances, not into the software.
