5 Vacation Tracking Tools for Small Businesses in 2026

Looking for vacation tracking software for a small business? The right answer depends on what else you need. Do you want a tool that only handles PTO, a payroll or HR system that also tracks time off, or a time tracker that can log leave as well?

We make one of the tools on this list, so read this with that in mind. We’ve tried to be fair: every price and feature below comes from each company’s own website, checked in October 2026. Prices change, so check before you buy.

Three kinds of vacation tracking software

Dedicated leave trackers do one job: PTO requests, approvals, balances and a calendar of who is away. They tend to be cheap and quick to set up. They won’t run payroll, hiring or benefits, so if you need those you’ll use other tools alongside.

HR and payroll systems track time off as one part of a bigger package that covers payroll, employee records, hiring and often benefits. They make sense if you’re buying the system anyway. They’re hard to justify for vacation tracking alone.

Time trackers record the hours people work, and some also log time off. They suit teams with hourly staff or client billing.

Dedicated leave trackers

Bindle

• Bindle costs $1.50 USD per person per month. There’s no contract, and you can cancel at any time.
• The free trial runs for 30 days and needs no credit card.
• Accruals can run daily, monthly or annually, with carry-over limits, maximum balances and extra leave for years of service.
• Bookings sync to Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar.
• Bindle works in any browser on desktop, tablet or phone, so there’s no app to install.

We founded Bindle in 2013 and launched it in 2014. It suits US businesses of about 5 to 100 people whose PTO rules have outgrown a spreadsheet but who don’t need a whole HR system.

Staff book their own time off. Approvers get an email and decide. Balances update as soon as a booking is approved, and each person can see their own bookings and balances. You can create your own leave types, such as vacation, sick leave, jury duty or parental leave, each with its own rules. Reports export to Excel for your payroll run.

Bindle can post a daily summary of who’s away to a Slack channel. Staff can’t request or approve leave inside Slack, so if your team wants to do that, look at Vacation Tracker below.

Bindle doesn’t do payroll, hiring or time tracking. If you need those in one place, an HR system or time tracker may suit you better.

Vacation Tracker

• The Core plan costs $2 per user per month, with a $50 monthly minimum. It includes carry-over, but not accruals.
• Accruals, blackout periods and extra leave for seniority need the Complete plan, at $4 per user per month with a $100 monthly minimum.
• Paying yearly saves about 10%. Complete then works out at $3.67 per user per month, with a $1,100 yearly minimum.
• Staff can request leave and managers can approve it inside Slack or Microsoft Teams.
• Leave syncs to Google Calendar or Outlook, and there are iOS and Android apps.
• The free trial runs for 14 days and needs no credit card.

Vacation Tracker is built to run inside Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace. It suits teams that already work in Slack or Teams all day and want requests and approvals to happen there.

The minimums matter for small teams. If you need accruals, a team of 10 pays $100 a month, the same as a team of 25. Teams without accrual rules can use Core for $50 a month.

HR and payroll systems with time off built in

Gusto

• The Simple plan costs $49 a month plus $6 per person. It runs payroll and includes time off requests, approvals and accrual tracking.
• The Plus plan costs $80 a month plus $12 per person. It adds time tracking, custom leave types such as jury duty or parental leave, and accrual rates that rise with tenure.
• Approved time off goes into payroll automatically.
• Time off policies support carry-over limits and maximum balances.
• Staff can request time off in a browser or in Gusto’s mobile app.
• Gusto has no contracts, and you can cancel at any time.

Gusto is payroll software first. If you already run payroll on it, try its time off feature before you buy anything else. It’s in every plan, and nobody has to retype PTO hours into payroll.

Every Gusto plan includes payroll, so it only makes sense for vacation tracking if you’ll run payroll on it too. A team of 10 on Simple pays $109 a month.

BambooHR

• Every plan includes time off management and a “Who’s Out” calendar.
• Companies with 25 employees or fewer pay a flat rate of $250 USD a month for Core, $425 for Pro or $650 for Elite.
• Larger companies pay per employee, from about $10 USD per employee per month for Core.
• Payroll and benefits administration for US employees are add-ons.
• Accrual policies can carry unused time into the next year, with an optional expiry date.
• Staff can request time off in the mobile app or in Slack, and managers get a Slack alert when a request needs approval.
• An iCal feed can show the Who’s Out calendar in Google Calendar or Outlook, if your admin turns it on.

BambooHR says more than 30,000 companies use it. If you want employee records, hiring, onboarding and time off in one place, it’s worth a look.

If you only need vacation tracking, it’s expensive. A team of 10 pays at least $250 a month, against $15 a month for Bindle and $50 to $100 for Vacation Tracker. That gap is fine if you’ll use the rest of the system, and hard to justify if you won’t.

Time trackers that also track leave

Clockify

• Time tracking is free for up to 5 users.
• Time off needs the Standard plan, at $5.49 per seat per month billed annually or $6.99 month to month. Every active or invited user takes a paid seat.
• Staff can request leave and see their balances, and the approvers you pick approve requests.
• Balances can accrue monthly or yearly, and they either never expire or expire on dates you set.
• Staff can request time off in the iOS and Android apps.
• Clockify doesn’t send time off alerts to Slack or Microsoft Teams unless you connect it through a tool like Zapier.

Clockify’s strength is timesheets. If your team already logs hours for payroll or client billing, adding time off to the same tool saves running two systems. You can read more on its time off tracking page.

If nobody on your team logs hours, you’d be paying for a timesheet tool to get leave tracking, at more than three times the price of Bindle.

Which one should you choose?

• You already run payroll on Gusto or HR on BambooHR: try its time off feature first. It’s included in every plan, so it may do all you need at no extra cost.
• Your team works in Slack or Teams and wants to request and approve leave there: try Vacation Tracker, and check its monthly minimum against your headcount.
• You track hours for payroll or billing: see whether Clockify or your current time tracker handles leave well enough before you add another tool.
• You want low-cost PTO tracking with flexible accrual rules and calendar sync: try Bindle.

Whichever you pick, get your policy straight first. Our guide to creating a PTO policy and free PTO policy generator will help. To check an employee’s balance by hand, use our free PTO Balance Calculator. And if you’d rather stick with a spreadsheet for now, our free PTO tracking spreadsheet is there for that.

Then run a free trial with your team. It’s the quickest way to find out which tool your staff will actually use. Start a 30-day Bindle trial, or email us if you want help setting it up.