LeaveBoard
HR Software Verified May 2026
Leaveboard is a no-fuss leave and time-off management tool — holiday tracking, approval workflows and payroll-ready CSV exports for teams up to 200.
- Free tier is full-featured for teams up to 9 — not artificially crippled
- Approval workflows take under an hour to configure
- Payroll-ready CSV export eliminates manual data entry at month-end
- Shared team calendar gives instant visibility of who is off
How LeaveBoard scored 60/100
6 weighted criteria, each scored out of 10 and published with its reasoning. Featured placements never move a score.
Deal Strength
5.0 /10There's no exclusive coupon; the value is a genuinely free plan for teams of up to nine employees, so a small business can run real leave management at no cost. It's a functional free tier as the on-ramp rather than a discount.
Value for Money
8.0 /10This is LeaveBoard's strong suit: the PRO plan is about $1.35 per employee per month (with roughly 17% off billed yearly), which is very cheap for HR software, and the free tier covers up to nine employees. For a company that only needs leave and time-off tracking rather than a full HR suite, the value-to-cost ratio is excellent.
Capability
5.0 /10LeaveBoard does one job well: leave and time-off requests and approvals, holiday and absence calendars, a self-service employee directory, HR dashboards and reporting, with integrations for Microsoft 365, Google Calendar, Slack and Apple iCal. It's deliberately focused; it's not a full HRIS with payroll, performance or benefits, which keeps it simple but limits its scope.
Time to Value
8.0 /10Setup is fast: add employees, set leave policies and holidays, connect Slack or your calendar, and the team can request and approve time off the same day — no complex implementation. The free tier means a small business validates the whole workflow immediately before ever paying.
Trust & Reliability
5.0 /10LeaveBoard is an established leave-management tool (operating since 2017) with a solid base of small and mid-sized businesses, supporting a reasonable reputation. The score stays mid-range because it's a small, focused vendor rather than a large HR platform, and it publishes limited formal reliability detail such as an uptime SLA.
Flexibility & Exit
5.0 /10Billing is refreshingly flexible — a free tier, low per-employee pricing and monthly or yearly options — and leave data can be exported, so there's little hard lock-in. Because it's a focused tool rather than a system of record for payroll or benefits, moving to another leave manager or a fuller HRIS is relatively low-friction.
About LeaveBoard
Quick answer
Leaveboard is a no-fuss leave and time-off management tool — holiday tracking, approval workflows and payroll-ready CSV exports for teams up to 200.
LeaveBoard, in 30 seconds
LeaveBoard is a focused leave management application that handles annual leave, sick leave, parental leave and custom absence types with multi-country calendar awareness. We picked it because for HR teams that have outgrown a shared spreadsheet but do not need a full HRIS, LeaveBoard is one of the cheapest credible options on the market.
How it works
You import employees, set up leave policies (annual entitlement, accrual rules, public holiday calendars by country), and approvers. Employees request leave from a self-service portal or Slack/Microsoft Teams, managers approve in one click, and the team calendar updates instantly. Reports cover balances, accruals, public holidays and absence trends for HR audits and payroll exports. Integrations hand off to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Calendar and Outlook, and CSV exports feed payroll systems that do not have a direct integration.
The product handles UK, US, EU and global public holiday calendars with country and region-specific rules, including bank holidays in the UK and state holidays in the US.
Pricing reality
Free for the first 9 employees including the full feature set. Paid plans start at $1.35/employee/month for the smallest seat-band and decline above 50 seats. There is no separate "premium" tier locking away core features; what you get on free is what you get on paid, just at scale. Annual billing offers a modest discount over monthly. Compared with Hibob (mid-market HRIS at $8-$12/employee/month) or BambooHR ($5.25/employee/month minimum), LeaveBoard is materially cheaper, because it solves one problem rather than 20.
Versus alternatives
| Tool | Strength | Weakness vs LeaveBoard |
|---|---|---|
| LeaveBoard | Lowest price, generous free tier, leave-only focus | — |
| BambooHR | Full HRIS with leave, performance, onboarding | 3-5x the cost; overkill if you only need leave tracking |
| Vacation Tracker | Native Slack and Teams app, easy setup | Lighter on accrual rules and reporting depth |
| Hibob | Modern HRIS with engagement and culture features | Mid-market pricing, sales-led |
Who should buy, who should skip
Buy if
- You are 10-500 employees and need to retire a leave-tracking spreadsheet
- You operate across multiple countries with different public holiday calendars
- You want Slack/Teams self-service without paying HRIS prices
Skip if
- You already pay for BambooHR, Hibob, Personio or another full HRIS with leave tracking
- You need integrated payroll, performance and onboarding in one platform
- You have under 9 employees and a Google Sheet still works
What's included
- Payroll sync eliminates double-entry and accrual drift
- Approval workflows scale without adding overhead
- Absence calendar visible across the org
- Policy templates handle multi-jurisdiction rules
- SaaSTweaks-verified affiliate deal
- Vendor-direct activation flow
- Editorial pros + cons review
- Tracked savings claim with refresh date
LeaveBoard pricing
Verified May 2026. Vendor's published rates at the time we checked — always confirm at checkout.
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Up to 9 employees, all core leave-tracking features, shared calendar |
| Premium | $1.35/user/mo | Unlimited employees, custom leave types, payroll export, integrations |
Getting started
4 steps. The last one is the part most people skip.
- 1
Open LeaveBoard through the link on this page
It carries our referral tag. The price you pay is identical either way, and it never changes the score on this page.
- 2
Compare the tiers against what you actually use
The pricing table on this page lists what each plan includes. Match it to real usage rather than the tier the vendor highlights.
- 3
Start on the smallest plan that fits
Most vendors let you move up mid-cycle and bill the difference, so starting low costs you nothing but starting high does.
- 4
Check the renewal terms before you commit
Note the renewal date and the rate it reverts to, so the second invoice is not a surprise. Annual plans are usually cheaper per month but harder to exit.
Where LeaveBoard wins and loses
What works
- Free tier is full-featured for teams up to 9 — not artificially crippled
- Approval workflows take under an hour to configure
- Payroll-ready CSV export eliminates manual data entry at month-end
- Shared team calendar gives instant visibility of who is off
What doesn't
- Reporting is basic — no custom report builder
- No direct payroll integration (CSV export only)
- Mobile app is functional but overdue for a design refresh
The bottom line
LeaveBoard is a no-fuss leave and time-off manager: holiday tracking, absence calendars, an HR directory and Slack integration at an unusually low per-employee price, free for very small teams. It's focused and cheap; that narrow scope and mid-tier reliability are the trade-offs, but for SMBs that just need clean leave management it's a buy.
LeaveBoard is free for teams of up to nine employees. Above that, the PRO plan is about $1.35 per employee per month billed monthly, with roughly 17% savings on annual billing, and Enterprise pricing is available on request. That per-employee rate is unusually low for HR leave-management software.
Yes — LeaveBoard's free plan supports up to nine employees at no cost, with leave requests, approvals, holiday calendars and the HR directory included. It's a genuine free tier for very small teams, and you only move to the paid PRO plan once you grow past nine employees or need Enterprise-level features.
LeaveBoard manages employee leave and time off: request-and-approval workflows, holiday and absence calendars, an employee self-service directory, HR dashboards and reporting. It integrates with Microsoft 365, Google Calendar, Slack and Apple iCal, so time-off shows up where teams already work. It focuses on absence management rather than being a full HR system.
Yes. LeaveBoard integrates with Slack (as well as Microsoft 365, Google Calendar and Apple iCal), so employees can request time off and see approvals and team absences without leaving the tools they use daily. That Slack-native workflow is a big part of why small, remote-friendly teams like it for lightweight leave tracking.
LeaveBoard suits small and mid-sized businesses that specifically need clean, affordable leave and time-off management — holiday tracking, approvals and absence calendars — without a full HR platform. Companies needing payroll, performance reviews, benefits administration or a complete HRIS will outgrow it and want a broader system.
Its narrow scope. LeaveBoard is a focused leave and absence tool, not a full HRIS, so it doesn't handle payroll, performance, benefits or recruiting. Teams that want an all-in-one HR system will need something broader; LeaveBoard's appeal is precisely that it does one thing cheaply and well.
