Built for fast-growing teams
A PTO tracker for startups
Free for your first 10 people, and Pro is $37.50 a month for up to 50 — so tracking time off never becomes a line item you have to think about.
Free for up to 10 people · 11 to 50 people: $37.50 a month on Pro
At seed stage you don't have an HR team, you have a founder doing twelve jobs and a #time-off thread that nobody can find. A spreadsheet works for the first five hires and quietly breaks around the tenth — someone double-books, a balance is wrong, and the person who owned the sheet has left. A PTO tracker built for startups takes that off your plate before it becomes a problem.
Absenca is free for your first 10 people — which covers most seed-stage teams outright — and stays the same tool, with the same data, when you hit Series A and double headcount. No re-platforming, no migration project: once you pass 10, Pro is $37.50 a month for up to 50 people. On Pro it runs inside Slack, where your team already is, so adoption isn't something you have to chase.
What you get
Free until you're 10
Calendar, approvals, accruals and public holidays, free for up to 10 people. Most seed-stage teams never pay a cent; the Slack bot is on Pro and the Custom Pack, not on the free Starter plan.
Set up in an afternoon
No implementation project and no HR hire required. Add your team, pick a leave policy, connect Slack — you're done before standup tomorrow.
Lives in Slack
Your team books and approves time off from Slack, with a daily who's-off summary in a channel. Adoption happens on its own because nobody learns a new app.
Scales without re-platforming
Pass 10 and Pro is $37.50 a month for up to 50 people — same tool, same history. No painful migration when you grow from 14 to 40.
Why startups outgrow the spreadsheet
A shared spreadsheet is free and fast to start, which is exactly why every startup tries it. The trouble is it has no rules: it doesn't pro-rate a mid-quarter hire, doesn't stop two engineers booking the same sprint, doesn't know your country's public holidays, and doesn't tell you when a balance has gone negative. By the time you notice, someone's already taken time they hadn't earned.
Absenca applies the policy automatically — accruals, carry-over, half-days, public holidays for 190+ countries — so balances are right the moment a request is approved. It's the difference between a number you hope is correct and one your team can actually trust before they book a flight.
Priced so it never becomes a decision
Per-user trackers often add a minimum seat count that stings a small team. That's the kind of cost that gets questioned in a budget review when you're watching runway.
Absenca is free up to 10 people, and Pro is one flat price after that: at 30 people it's $37.50 a month on Pro, and at 50 it's $37.50 a month on Pro. Predictable enough that it never surprises you as you hire. See the full breakdown on the pricing page.
Grows from co-founders to multi-office
The same account that handles your first three hires handles your first satellite office. When you open in a second country, each office gets its own work week, leave year and public-holiday calendar, while you keep one view across the whole company. Roles (admin, location-admin, manager, employee) mean you can hand off approvals as you hire managers, without giving everyone the keys.
Nothing you set up early gets thrown away later — the policies, balances and history all carry forward as the team scales.
Why teams choose Absenca
- Free for your first 10 people — no credit card
- Slack-first: book and approve time off without leaving chat
- Set up in an afternoon, no HR hire needed
- Pro after 10 people: $37.50 a month for up to 50
- Real-time balances with accruals, carry-over and half-days
- Scales to multi-office without re-platforming
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a free PTO tracker for startups?
- Yes — Absenca is free for up to 10 people, with the shared calendar, approvals, accruals and public holidays. The Slack bot is on Pro and the Custom Pack, not on the free Starter plan. No credit card and no trial countdown.
- What does it cost once we grow past 10 people?
- Pro is one flat price for up to 50 people: $37.50 a month, or $405 a year. At 30 people it works out to $37.50 a month on Pro.
- Does it work inside Slack?
- Yes. Your team requests time off with /absenca leave in Slack, managers approve with one tap, and an optional daily or weekly summary posts who's away to a channel. Balances and the calendar update in the background, so the Slack convenience doesn't cost you accuracy. The Slack bot is on Pro and the Custom Pack, not on the free Starter plan.
- We're tiny now but hiring fast — will we have to switch tools later?
- No. The same account scales from a few co-founders to a multi-office company. When you grow you keep all your history, balances and settings, add roles and offices as needed, and just move onto Pro — there's no migration.
- Is Absenca an HRIS or payroll tool?
- No — it's dedicated leave and absence management, the time-off part of HR done thoroughly. It works happily alongside whatever HR or payroll tool you adopt later, so you can start with just the piece you need now.