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Tired of navigating spreadsheets and manually handling leave calculations, holiday requests, and sick days? It’s time to move to a better alternative — HR software that makes time-off management feel easy.
There are lots of different options out there, but two that stand out are Timetastic and CharlieHR. Timetastic is a dedicated staff holiday planning tool, while CharlieHR is an all-in-one HR system that includes time-off management.
In this guide we’re comparing Timetastic vs CharlieHR’s features, pricing, and user experience, so you can decide which is the best match for what you need.
CharlieHR
Breathe
Time-off management
✅
✅
Employee records
✅
❌
Document storage
✅
❌
Onboarding workflows
✅
❌
Performance reviews
✅
❌
Engagement surveys
✅
❌
Pro-rata leave and bank holidays
✅
✅ requires manual workarounds
Integrations
✅
✅ only with calendar apps, Slack, and Google Workspace
Setup complexity
Easy
Easy
Pricing structure
Per team per month
Per employee per month
Best for:
UK small businesses that want core HR workflows in one place
Teams primarily looking for holiday and absence tracking
Our goal is to help you find the best time-off management software. We hope that’s Charlie, but if it isn’t then we hope you find your ideal match in one of our other alternatives or comparison guides.
To prepare this guide, we studied insights from customer sales calls, public feature documentation, and research into market positioning. From this we were able to identify both platform’s strengths: CharlieHR for simple HR management (including time off), and Timetastic as a strong leave management tool. Pricing and feature comparisons last updated in March 2026.
Get to know the essentials and both platforms’ core strengths.
CharlieHR is ideal for small businesses in the UK that want one place to handle all core HR tasks, instead of relying on spreadsheets or a mix of different tools. For many Charlie users, it’s either their first HR software or they’ve switched to Charlie because it’s so flexible and easy to use.
Here’s why Charlie stands out:
Timetastic is an HR software tool built around one feature — staff leave and holiday planning. The software helps HR teams and managers streamline the time off management process with a central, visual, and easy-to-use holiday planner and tracker.
Here’s where Timetastic stands out:
Charlie and Timetastic both offer a way to manage and visualise staff absences, but there are some key reasons to choose Charlie over Timetastic.
Many people move to Charlie from a mix of tools that includes spreadsheets, Google Drive, payroll software, survey tools, and Timetastic (or an alternative). Instead of managing multiple platforms, busy CEOs and HR managers can use Charlie to bring everything together in one place.
Charlie users benefit from:
👉 Timetastic is one of many tools that small business owners use, rather than one system.
Timetastic covers one function only: time-off management. Charlie handles time-off management alongside other core HR functions, offering more streamlined workflows and better value for money.
All Charlie users have access to:
👉 Timetastic isn’t a full HR Information System (HRIS), so to get all this functionality you’ll need to add another HR system (or several).
Charlie is built for more than just managing staff absences, which means that it can handle complex or custom situations with ease. You can adjust work patterns, availability, and hours worked and the system will automatically update.
CharlieHR can handle:
👉 Timetastic’s leave management tools lack some of the flexibility of Charlie’s, making it harder to deal with these more complex situations.
Small businesses will find all the features they need to manage HR confidently within CharlieHR, but there’s also a collection of integrations for when you want to connect with other types of software.
Charlie’s integrations library includes:
👉 Timetastic’s integrations are very limited, with basic integrations for Slack, Google Workspace, and a variety of calendar apps.
Timetastic is a good fit for teams that want a simple, lightweight tool for staff absence and nothing else.
Timetastic gives small teams and managers an effective way to keep track of time off without being distracted by other features or notifications. Some workplaces will prefer the clean, simple user interface and sole focus on time-off management.
Timetastic users can:
👉 Charlie users can easily submit time-off requests and customise working schedules, but there’s no mobile app for instant notifications.
At the centre of Timetastic’s leave management system is the virtual wall chart. It allows you to see what’s happening at a glance, plus the ability to dive deeper into individual profiles for more detail if you need it.
With this highly visual approach, Timetastic users can:
👉 CharlieHR also has a visual calendar and time-off overview, but it’s not as colourful or flexible as Timetastic’s.
Although we believe there’s a need for small business HR software, not every business needs it right away — especially very small businesses, solo entrepreneurs, or partnerships. Very new or micro businesses under 10 employees may be happy with spreadsheets for the time being.
Timetastic includes:
Timetastic isn’t the only leave management software out there, so it’s also worth comparing Timetastic alternatives if this is your main reason for choosing (or sticking with) the tool.
👉 CharlieHR is a full HR system, covering time-off management and the rest of the features that help small businesses to take care of HR.
Like a lot of software tools, Timetastic’s pricing works on a per employee, per month model. Customers are charged once every month depending on how many active users they have and which plan or tier they’re signed up to.
Benefits of this approach to pricing include:
👉 Charlie’s pricing increases in brackets, so there’s a more gradual transition as your team size grows, which can help you balance your budget with ease.
We can see that Charlie features everything that Timetastic does — and more. With more functionality, better value, and higher levels of flexibility, it’s easy to see why Charlie is such a popular choice for small businesses.
CharlieHR
Timetastic (leave management only)
Timetastic + another HR platform
1-4 people
£5 per month*
£1.20 to £4.80 per month
£7.20 to £28.80 per month+
5-9 people
£45 per month
£6 to £10.80 per month
£36 to £64.80 per month+
10-14 people
£45 per month
£12 to £16.80 per month
£76 to £100.80 per month+
15-29 people
£105 per month
£18 to £34.80 per month
£108 to £208.80 per month+
30-49 people
£180 per month
£36 to £58.80 per month
£216 to £352.80 per month+
50-99 people
£315 per month
£60 to £118.80 per month
£360 to £712.80 per month+
Small teams benefit from a special discount off the standard price of CharlieHR. Teams of 1-4 people can access our “HR for a fiver” plan where they get access to all features for just £5 per month. When you compare HR software, this works out as the best deal for small businesses.
👉 For a team of four people using Timetastic, the monthly total would be £4.80 — but this only includes time-off management, not the wide range of HR features included with Charlie.
Charlie is designed for small businesses and it supports growth naturally, so you don’t need to switch to a different tool just because things are going well.
Growth options with Charlie include:
👉 Timetastic’s options for growth are limited, as it focuses on one function and lacks integrations with different types of tools.
Daye raises the standards in gynae health by providing innovative products and services in gynae and hormonal health. Since it was created in 2018, the company has grown significantly.
Founder Valentina Milanova realised she’d need a way to manage HR more effectively than spreadsheets and fragmented systems, and she found a great match in CharlieHR.
Company size: 42 people
Goals with Charlie: To centralise HR tasks and be more efficient with time spent on HR as they scale.
How Charlie helps Daye achieve their goals:
Where are they now:
Read case study
👉 For details on how small businesses use Timetastic, explore their customer stories.
Timetastic is an ideal option for teams that just want a tool for staff absence and holiday tracking. But if you want onboarding, documents, compliance, and time-off management in one system, Charlie is the better option.
CharlieHR is:
Book a demo to explore CharlieHR in full and get a feel for how it can support you not just with time-off management but the entire suite of functions that small business HR covers.
Jenny is a Senior Product Manager at CharlieHR. She has years of experience with product planning and development, and user research too – she put together this guide by collecting data and information on competitors so we could improve our product and tailor it to small business owners.
Timetastic is a single-purpose tool for staff absence management, while CharlieHR is an all-in-one HR system. Both are a great option for UK small businesses, but they solve different problems: Timetastic supports time-off management, and Charlie helps with full core HR management.
Timetastic is built for staff leave management, which includes holiday tracking. It also covers the full range of leave types and absences, including annual leave, sick leave, caregivers leave, sabbaticals, medical appointments, and training days.
No, Timetastic is a useful leave management tool but it can’t replace a full HR system. If you use Timetastic you’ll need to add a HRIS alongside it to add onboarding, performance reviews, employee data management, and other core HR functionality.
Most businesses will need a separate HR system if they use Timetastic for absence management, although some may prefer to stick with spreadsheets and docs.
CharlieHR is the best fit for small businesses that want an all-in-one HR software, while Timetastic is a better option for teams that simply want to manage staff absences in a visual calendar.
No, Timetastic doesn’t currently support onboarding or employee document management. For these functions you’ll need to consider a HRIS like Charlie.
Timetastic’s pro rata calculation system will suggest a figure, but this doesn’t take into account complexities like part-time workers, public holidays, or when both situations apply to a user. Instead, Timetastic suggests using your own manual formula for this.
Timetastic’s pricing starts at £1.20 per user per month. CharlieHR’s pricing starts at £5 per month for a team of up to 4 individuals. See the detailed pricing comparison table above for ideas on what this might look like for your team size.
CharlieHR and Timetastic both have a self-led onboarding process, rather than the guided implementation you might see with other HR systems. This means you can often be up and running as soon as you’re able to upload data and customise your settings: this can be as soon as 7-7 days.
Consider moving from Timetastic to a full HR system when you no longer want to deal with a fragmented HR stack and instead want one single source of truth for all people data and HR functions.
Yes, it’s easy to switch from Timetastic to CharlieHR. Use our bulk data import to add your employee data to Charlie, then take your time to customise settings as you’d wish.
Yes! CharlieHR has a fully-featured leave management tool, so you can enjoy simple staff absence tracking with even more flexibility and customisation than Timetastic offers.
