Annual leave management software keeps track of employee vacation days, simplifies time off requests and approvals, and helps you stay compliant with employment law. It replaces spreadsheets, paper forms, and email threads with one system where employees request leave, managers approve it, and balances update automatically.
There are many options on the market, so the right choice depends on your team size, your budget, and the tools you already use. To help you decide, we reviewed 10 of the best annual leave management software tools available today, with current pricing and a clear best-fit for each.
What is annual leave management software?
Annual leave management software automates the process of requesting, approving, tracking, and reporting on employee time off. Employees submit requests online or from a mobile app, managers approve or decline them in a click, and the system keeps every balance accurate and visible to everyone who needs it.
Most tools cover all leave types: vacation, sick days, parental leave, unpaid leave, and any custom categories your organization uses. The better ones calculate holiday entitlement automatically, flag overlapping requests, and give managers a real-time view of who is available on any given day.
Why teams move off spreadsheets
Manual tracking breaks down as you grow. A shared spreadsheet works for a handful of people. Once requests come in faster than someone can update the file, balances drift out of date and two people book the same week off without anyone noticing.
Compliance gets risky. Employment law requires accurate records of leave taken, accrued, and remaining. Dedicated software enforces your policy rules automatically and produces audit-ready records on demand.
Remote teams need shared visibility. When people work across locations, a cloud-based system tells every manager who is off and who is available, wherever they are based.
Payroll depends on clean leave data. When your leave system feeds accurate records to payroll, you remove a whole category of costly corrections.
Key features to look for
Before you commit to a tool, check that it covers the essentials:
- Request and approval workflow with instant notifications and one-click approvals.
- Custom leave types with individual rules for vacation, sick leave, parental leave, and more.
- Automatic balance and entitlement calculations, including carryover and pro-rata for starters and leavers.
- Calendar integrations with Google Calendar, Outlook, and the chat tools your team already uses.
- Reporting that is filterable by employee, team, and leave type, and exportable for payroll.
- Mobile access so employees and managers can request and approve from their phones.
Best annual leave management software
Here are 10 of the best annual leave management tools, covering a range of team sizes and budgets. Prices are each vendor’s entry point as of July 2026, shown in the currency the vendor lists. Confirm current pricing on the vendor site before you buy.
| Tool | Free plan | Auto accrual | Mobile app | Calendar sync | Slack | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| actiPLANS | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | — | Free up to 3 users; $1.50/user/mo |
| WhosOff | — | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | From £0.95/user/mo |
| Timetastic | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | £1.20/user/mo |
| TimeTac | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | — | €19.50/mo base + ~€2.50/user |
| Deputy | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | — | From $5/user/mo |
| Myhrtoolkit | — | — | ✔ | ✔ | — | From £22/mo (banded) |
| Kenjo | — | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | From €6/employee/mo |
| LeaveWizard | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | From £0.43/employee/mo |
| BrightHR | — | — | ✔ | ✔ | — | Quote (from ~£3/employee/mo) |
| ClayHR | — | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | — | From $7/employee/mo |
1. actiPLANS
actiPLANS is a flexible work scheduling tool with powerful leave management built in. It calculates time off balances automatically and lets employees plan leave for the year ahead on a visual timeline that the whole team can see.
Managers save time by automating leave request approvals and get a clear picture of absence trends through detailed reports. The mobile app lets anyone submit requests, notify colleagues of schedule changes, and check who is off, right from their phone.
Pricing: Free plan for up to 3 users. Standard is $1.50 per user per month (billed annually). Growth is $1.20 per user per month for teams of 41 to 200 users. Enterprise is $270 per month for unlimited users. A 30-day free trial includes every feature.
Best for: Teams of any size that want a dedicated, configurable leave tool. Especially strong for multiple locations, complex accrual policies, or teams that already use actiTIME for time tracking.
2. WhosOff
WhosOff is a clean, user-friendly leave planner used by over 2,500 organizations. It auto-calculates leave balances, shows who is off and when, and lets employees request and managers approve time off in a few clicks.
You can set custom time off policies, limit how many days each person takes, and restrict overlapping requests to prevent understaffing. WhosOff also handles TOIL and overtime, stores personnel documents in its Staff Hub, and connects to Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google Calendar.
Pricing: From £0.95 per user per month, billable in GBP, USD, or EUR, with volume discounts as you add staff. Free trial of up to 8 weeks, no credit card required.
Best for: Small and medium-sized businesses that want simple, transparent per-user leave tracking backed by responsive UK-based support.
3. Timetastic
Timetastic is a super simple staff leave management tool used by more than 200,000 people. Everyone gets a personal holiday calendar, and a shared wallchart shows who is out of the office and when, so you can plan workloads around availability.
The app handles requests, approvals, and daily or weekly digests, and the Pro plan adds absence trends, company-wide reports, accrued leave, and single sign-on. Timetastic integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and other tools your team already uses.
Pricing: £1.20 per user per month, or £2 per user per month for Timetastic Pro. 30-day free trial, no credit card required, with a 50% discount for charities and other good causes.
Best for: Small teams that want a simple, well-liked holiday planner with almost no learning curve.
4. TimeTac
TimeTac is a leave management and staff holiday planner that automatically calculates holiday entitlement and every type of time off. Setup is quick, requests run through approval workflows, and the mobile app lets employees and managers handle leave from anywhere.
Its substitute-manager feature stands out: if the approver is away, requests automatically route to a backup so nothing sits unprocessed. TimeTac also handles carryover rules, worldwide public holiday templates, and Excel or PDF reporting, and it stores data on EU servers with ISO 27001 certification.
Pricing: A base fee of €19.50 per month plus the Leave Management module at roughly €2.50 per user per month (net). 30-day free trial, with custom rates for accounts above 20 users.
Best for: European teams that want compliance-focused leave management, ideally alongside TimeTac’s time tracking.
5. Deputy
Deputy is a workforce management platform with strong shift scheduling and a built-in leave module. Employees track their own balances and submit time off requests through the app, and managers approve them from any device.
You can set custom accrual rates per leave type, and Deputy automatically blocks leave requests for the dates you need everyone available. Because scheduling and leave live in the same system, you never build a roster around someone who is off.
Pricing: Lite is $5 per user per month and includes leave and availability management; Core is $6.50 and Pro is $9. A $30 per month minimum applies, with a free trial of up to 31 days.
Best for: Shift-based businesses in retail, hospitality, and healthcare that need scheduling and leave in one tool.
6. Myhrtoolkit
Myhrtoolkit is a UK HR platform with a solid holiday and absence module. It automates pro-rata annual leave calculations, so approving or rejecting requests takes a couple of clicks and balances stay accurate for full-time, part-time, and variable staff.
Employees use self-service to request leave and check their own balances without going through HR, and the tool integrates with Outlook and Google Calendar. Absence management adds Bradford factor tracking and self-certification, which helps you spot patterns early.
Pricing: A flat monthly fee banded by headcount, starting at £22 per month for up to 5 employees and £37.50 for 6 to 10, scaling from there (excluding VAT). Registered charities get 10% off.
Best for: UK small and medium-sized businesses that want affordable HR plus leave management in one place.
7. Kenjo
Kenjo is a German HR platform that covers time off, sick leave, and shift planning alongside its wider people management features. It keeps track of annual entitlements, recognizes regional and national holidays so they are not deducted, and helps you plan absences in advance.
Employees request time off in a few clicks and see their remaining balance at a glance, and approved leave can sync to personal calendars and to Slack. Managers get clear reports to analyze absence trends and reduce unused leave.
Pricing: Starter is €6 per employee per month (€5.40 billed annually), Growth is €10, and Connect is quote-based. Optional recruiting add-ons are priced separately.
Best for: European small and medium-sized businesses that want an all-in-one HR platform rather than a standalone leave tool.
8. LeaveWizard
LeaveWizard is a leave and absence tool for small businesses that have outgrown wallcharts and spreadsheets. It automates leave, overtime, and TOIL, and gives managers a live view of who is in, who is off, and where coverage gaps might appear.
You can build custom leave policies with accruals and carryover, keep sickness private while holidays stay visible, and let employees self-serve through the mobile app. LeaveWizard integrates with Google and Outlook calendars, Google Workspace, Slack, and Microsoft Teams.
Pricing: From £0.43 per employee per month, billed annually and scaled by headcount. 30-day free trial with no card required.
Best for: Growing SMEs that need more than a holiday calendar but less than a full corporate HR suite.
9. BrightHR
BrightHR is a UK HR platform trusted by more than 120,000 businesses, with an award-winning staff holiday planner at its core. It calculates annual leave automatically, flags holiday clashes so you avoid being understaffed, and lets managers approve or decline requests on the go through the BrightHR app.
Beyond leave, BrightHR bundles shifts and rotas, sickness and lateness tracking, document storage, and clocking in, plus optional 24/7 employment-law advice. That makes it a fuller people-management suite rather than a single-purpose leave tool.
Pricing: Package-based and typically quoted for your business size. Online packages start at £16.67 per employee per month for small teams and fall to around £3 per employee per month at larger headcounts.
Best for: UK businesses that want HR software plus built-in employment-law and health and safety support.
10. ClayHR
ClayHR (formerly BizMerlinHR) is a configurable HR platform used in more than 160 countries. Its leave module includes a shared absence calendar, employee self-service, flexible time off rules, reporting, and a mobile app, so you can schedule single days off or long vacations with ease.
Because leave sits inside a broader HRMS with talent acquisition, performance reviews, timesheets, and expense tracking, ClayHR suits organizations that want to run most of their HR from one system rather than stitch together separate tools.
Pricing: The Professional plan starts at $7 per employee per month and includes PTO, timesheets, and employee records. Enterprise is $9 per employee per month, and Enterprise++ is quote-based.
Best for: Growing companies that want a configurable, full HRMS with leave management built in.
How to choose the right system
The right annual leave management system comes down to three things: your team size, your integration needs, and your budget.
Team size sets how much configurability you need. A team of 15 can get by with a simple planner like Timetastic or WhosOff. A team of 200 across multiple locations needs per-location policies, role-based visibility, and robust reporting, which is where actiPLANS, TimeTac, or a full HR suite fit better.
Integration needs narrow the field fast. If your team lives in Slack or Microsoft Teams, WhosOff, Timetastic, Kenjo, and LeaveWizard connect there directly. If you run shifts, Deputy keeps scheduling and leave together. If you already use actiTIME for time tracking, actiPLANS connects the two into a single stack.
Budget sets the floor. Most tools here are trial-only, so watch for the difference between a free trial and a genuinely free plan. actiPLANS is the only option on this list with a permanent free plan (up to 3 users), and its paid plans start at $1.50 per user per month, which keeps costs low even at mid-size scale.
If you are not sure where to start, actiPLANS offers a 30-day free trial with full access to every feature. Set up your leave types, configure your approval workflow, and run your first report before committing to anything.
Try actiPLANS free for 30 days →
FAQ
What is the best annual leave management software?
actiPLANS is the strongest dedicated option for most teams: it automates accrual and approvals, handles multiple locations, and starts free for up to 3 users. If you run shift-based teams, Deputy keeps scheduling and leave in one place. If you want leave as part of a broader HR platform, BrightHR, Kenjo, and ClayHR all fit.
Is there free annual leave management software?
Yes, but it is rare. Among the tools here, actiPLANS offers a permanent free plan for teams of up to 3 users. Most other tools provide a free trial (typically 30 days, up to 8 weeks for WhosOff) rather than a free plan, so you pay once the trial ends.
What is the difference between annual leave software and full HR software?
Annual leave software is purpose-built for one job: request, approve, track, and report on time off. Full HR platforms like BrightHR, Kenjo, and ClayHR include leave as one module alongside payroll, onboarding, and performance. Dedicated tools are simpler to set up and cheaper if leave is all you need, while HR suites make sense when you want to consolidate several processes.
