Timetastic is a staff leave planner made by a small team in Manchester, UK. It has been around since 2012 and is used by more than 200,000 people across 8,000 businesses.
Its selling point is simplicity. Timetastic does not try to be an all-in-one HR platform. It handles holiday bookings, absence approvals, leave allowances, and team calendars — and it does those things with very little friction. If you need more than that, you are likely to hit its limits quickly.
This Timetastic review covers Timetastic pricing at each plan, what it does not include, and how Timetastic vs actiPLANS stacks up for teams choosing between the two.
Quick verdict
| Timetastic | actiPLANS | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Small teams (under 50 people) that want the fastest, simplest way to manage holidays and book leave | Teams focused on leave management, PTO accruals, location scheduling and payroll-ready reporting |
| Free plan | No — 30-day free trial, no credit card required | Yes — up to 3 users with core features |
| Paid pricing from | $1.50/user/month (basic). $2.50/user/month (Pro). Month-to-month billing. No minimum. | From $1.20/user/month annually |
| Core differentiator | The Wallchart (visual team absence calendar) and the Burnout Board (absence trend insights). Exceptional simplicity. | Work location scheduling, deeper accrual automation and actiTIME integration for time tracking |
| Missing | No free plan; no time & attendance (coming soon); no employee documents; limited reporting; no accruals on basic plan; Teams integration only on Pro | No Slack/Teams integration; accruals require setup but are included |
What is Timetastic?
Timetastic is a leave management tool, and only that. You use it to book holidays, log sickness and other absences, approve requests, track allowances, and see who is off across your team. It is not a payroll system, not an HR database, not a time tracker.
The product is deliberately minimal. The interface is clean, setup takes minutes, and the average employee needs no training to use it.
Feature breakdown
The Wallchart
The Wallchart is the central view in Timetastic. It shows every team member on a shared calendar with colour-coded absence types: who is on holiday, who is sick, who is on a training day or attending an away event. You can filter by department, jump forward or backward in time, and click any date to request leave directly from the calendar.
Managers can see clashes at a glance before approving requests. Minimum staffing levels can be set per department so that if approving a request would drop coverage below the threshold, the system flags it.
Both the web app and the mobile app give access to the Wallchart. Employees see the same view, which means they can check availability themselves before booking rather than asking a manager.
Individual calendars and allowance tracking
Every team member gets a personal calendar showing their own leave history, upcoming bookings, and remaining allowance for the year. The breakdown includes days taken by leave type, upcoming requests awaiting approval, and a year-at-a-glance trend view.
Allowances reset automatically at the start of each leave year. Carry-over can be configured. Managers can adjust individual allowances manually at any time.
Leave types
Timetastic supports custom leave types. The default set covers the most common categories:
- Annual leave
- Sickness
- Maternity / paternity
- Sabbatical
- Doctor’s appointment
- Seasonal shutdown
- Compassionate leave
- Away day / training
Each leave type can be colour-coded on the Wallchart. On the Pro plan, individual leave types can be capped (so employees cannot book more than a set number of days of a given type) and you can limit how far in advance a type can be booked.
Leave requests and approvals
Employees request leave by selecting dates on the calendar in the app or on the web. The request goes by email to the approving manager, who sees the Wallchart summary and clicks approve or decline directly from the email — no need to log in. The decision is recorded and the employee is notified instantly.
There is one approval level per department. Multi-step or escalation workflows are not available. Timetastic is built for straightforward single-manager approval.
Public holidays
Public holiday calendars for 250+ countries and over 3,000 regions are built in. You select the relevant region for each department or employee. Public holidays do not count against allowances by default. Bank holiday management is automatic once the region is set.
Daily and weekly digest emails
Timetastic sends a daily morning email listing who is off that day, and a weekly digest at the start of each week showing upcoming absences. These emails go to all team members, not just admins, which means people check team availability without logging in.
This is a consistently praised feature in reviews, particularly for managers who want passive visibility without checking a dashboard.
The Burnout Board (Pro only)
The Burnout Board is a Pro feature that shows absence trends across the team: who has taken leave, who has not, and which employees are flagging as potential burnout risk based on long periods without any booked leave.
It is designed to help managers spot people who are not taking their allowance rather than waiting for a problem to surface. It shows the data as a visual heatmap across the year.
Accrued leave (Pro only)
Accruals allow leave allowances to build up incrementally over the year rather than granting the full entitlement on day one. Pro plan users can configure accrual policies per leave type or per employee group.
Single sign-on and Teams (Pro only)
SAML-based single sign-on is available on Pro, supporting corporate identity providers. Microsoft Teams integration — which allows leave notifications and visibility inside Teams — is also a Pro-only feature. Slack is available on both plans.
Integrations
| Integration | Plan required | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Slack | Basic and Pro | Leave request notifications in Slack channels; team members can see who is off |
| Google Calendar | Basic and Pro | Sync absence calendar into Google Calendar; all team absences appear as calendar events |
| Outlook Calendar | Basic and Pro | Sync absence calendar into Outlook; personal and team leave visible in Outlook |
| Apple Calendar | Basic and Pro | iCal sync for iOS and macOS users |
| Google Workspace | Basic and Pro | Directory sync and authentication support |
| Microsoft Teams | Pro only | Leave notifications and visibility inside Teams |
| SAML SSO | Pro only | Corporate SSO via SAML-compatible identity providers |
Mobile app
Timetastic has iOS and Android apps. Both support leave requests, the Wallchart, allowance tracking and notification management. The app is rated 4.8 on the Apple App Store. Reviewers describe it as clean and functional, though a minority note it mirrors the web experience rather than adding mobile-specific features.
What Timetastic does not include
- No time and attendance tracking or clock-in functionality — this is coming in Rota & Time Clock
- No employee document storage
- No HR database or employee records beyond name, department and leave allowance
- No performance reviews
- No payroll integration in the current product
- No multi-level approval workflows — one approver per department only
- Reporting is limited — absence trends are in the Pro Burnout Board, but downloadable reports are basic; some reviewers find the data export lacks historical detail for former employees
- No accruals on the basic plan
Timetastic pricing
Timetastic has two plans, both billed monthly with no long-term contract. Both include a 30-day free trial and require no credit card to start. There is no annual billing option and no minimum team size.
| Timetastic (basic) | Timetastic Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.50/user/month | $2.50/user/month |
| Billing | Monthly, no contract | Monthly, no contract |
| Minimum charge | None | None |
| Free trial | 30 days, no credit card | 30 days, no credit card |
| Unlimited users and departments | Yes | Yes |
| Wallchart and shared team calendar | Yes | Yes |
| Holiday allowance tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Leave request and approval workflow | Yes | Yes |
| Custom leave types | Yes | Yes |
| Public holidays (250+ countries / 3,000+ regions) | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app (iOS and Android) | Yes | Yes |
| Slack integration | Yes | Yes |
| Google / Outlook / Apple calendar sync | Yes | Yes |
| Daily and weekly digest emails | Yes | Yes |
| Maximum absent rules (clash detection) | Yes | Yes |
| Group bookings | Yes | Yes |
| Absence trends and Burnout Board | No | Yes |
| Accrued leave policies | No | Yes |
| Capped leave types | No | Yes |
| Enhanced user profiles | No | Yes |
| Pro email digests | No | Yes |
| Microsoft Teams integration | No | Yes |
| SAML single sign-on (SSO) | No | Yes |
Discounts: Timetastic offers a 50% discount for charities, Certified B Corporations, Fair Tax Mark holders, 1% for the Planet members and NHS Trusts.
Timetastic vs actiPLANS: how they compare
Both tools handle leave management for small and mid-sized teams, and both compete in a similar price range. The differences are in billing structure, what the paid plans include, and the scope beyond leave management.
Pricing comparison
| Timetastic (basic) | Timetastic Pro | actiPLANS (1-40 users) | actiPLANS (41-200 users) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly billing | $1.50/user/month | $2.50/user/month | $1.90/user/month | $1.50/user/month |
| Annual billing | Not available | Not available | $1.50/user/month | $1.20/user/month |
| Minimum charge | None | None | None | None |
| Free plan | No | No | Yes (up to 3 users) | N/A |
| Free trial | 30 days, no credit card | 30 days, no credit card | 30 days, all features | 30 days, all features |
At first glance the prices look the same — $1.50/user/month. Where it diverges: if you need accruals or absence trend analytics, Timetastic charges $2.50/user/month (Pro). actiPLANS includes accrual configuration in its standard annual plan. For a 20-person team, Timetastic Pro costs $50/month versus actiPLANS at $30/month.
Feature comparison: leave management
| Feature | Timetastic (basic) | Timetastic Pro | actiPLANS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom leave types | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PTO accrual automation | No | Yes | Yes |
| Hourly leave requests | No — full or half days only | No — full or half days only | Yes |
| Multi-level approvals | No — one approver per dept | No — one approver per dept | Yes |
| Public holiday calendars | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Work location scheduling (office/remote) | No | No | Yes |
| Absence trend analytics / burnout insights | No | Yes (Burnout Board) | Yes (time-off reports) |
| Downloadable absence reports | Basic | Yes | Yes |
| Calendar sync | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Slack integration | Yes | Yes | No |
| Microsoft Teams integration | No | Yes | No |
| Mobile app | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | iOS and Android |
| Time and attendance / clock-in | No (coming in Rota & Time Clock) | No (coming in Rota & Time Clock) | No |
| actiTIME integration | No | No | Yes |
| Free plan | No | No | Yes (up to 3 users) |
| Annual billing option | No | No | Yes |
Value analysis
Timetastic is the better choice if simplicity is the priority, your team is under 50 people, and you want month-to-month flexibility without committing to an annual subscription. Its interface is praised as the easiest to onboard in this category, and the Wallchart gives team-wide absence visibility without any configuration.
actiPLANS is the better choice if you need accrual automation without paying for a Pro tier, want work location scheduling (who is in the office and who is remote), need hourly leave requests, or use actiTIME and want an integrated time-tracking workflow. The annual billing is a commitment, but at the 41-200 user tier ($1.20/user/month) it is meaningfully cheaper than Timetastic Pro.
The gap that matters most for teams evaluating both: Timetastic offers no hourly leave, no multi-step approvals, and no work location scheduling at any price. actiPLANS offers all three as standard. If any of those are requirements, Timetastic cannot meet them.
Timetastic: our scorecard
| Area | Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 10 / 10 | Unanimous across 4,000+ reviews. No training required. Sets up in minutes. |
| Leave management depth | 6 / 10 | Covers the basics well; no hourly leave, no multi-step approvals, no work location scheduling |
| Reporting | 5 / 10 | Burnout Board (Pro) is genuinely useful; standard reports are limited; no historical data for deleted employees |
| Pricing value | 8 / 10 | Competitive for basic plan; Pro at $2.50 is reasonable; no annual discount and no free plan are notable gaps |
| Calendar / team visibility | 9 / 10 | The Wallchart and daily / weekly digest emails are best-in-class for passive team visibility |
| Integrations | 6 / 10 | Good Slack and calendar coverage; Teams only on Pro; no HR or payroll integrations in current product |
| Flexibility | 5 / 10 | No annual billing, no multi-level approvals, no hourly leave, no location scheduling |
| Overall | 7 / 10 | Outstanding at what it does; limited scope for teams that need more than simple leave tracking |
Conclusion: should you use Timetastic?
Timetastic earns its high ratings honestly. It is the easiest leave management tool to set up and use in this price range — that is not a small claim, and it is consistent across thousands of reviews on four different platforms. For a small team replacing spreadsheets or a paper-based holiday form, it is hard to beat at $1.50/user/month.
The Pro plan at $2.50/user/month adds meaningful features: accruals, the Burnout Board, Teams integration and SSO. If you need those features, the price is still reasonable. But some reviewers note that accruals feel like a basic feature that should not require an upgrade.
The limitations become visible as team complexity grows. No hourly leave. No multi-step approvals. No work location scheduling. No free plan. No time tracking yet. Timetastic itself is clearly aware of the last point — Rota & Time Clock is a significant product investment. But until that launches and proves stable, the current product has a defined ceiling.
If you are looking for a Timetastic alternative, actiPLANS is the better fit when you need work location scheduling, hourly leave requests, multi-level approval workflows, or an integrated connection to actiTIME. The annual commitment is a trade-off, but actiPLANS includes accruals at the standard tier and costs less per user than Timetastic Pro for larger teams.
If your requirement is simple and your team is under 50 people, Timetastic is a legitimate choice and worth trialling. The 30-day trial is genuinely free and requires no credit card.
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