Built for fast-growing teams
A PTO tracker for startups
Free for your first 15 people, lives inside Slack, and scales at a flat $0.75 per user — so tracking time off never becomes a line item you have to think about.
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 15 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, just a flat $0.75 per user per month once you pass 15. It runs inside Slack, where your team already is, so adoption isn't something you have to chase.
Free until you're 15
The full product — calendar, approvals, accruals, Slack bot, public holidays — free for up to 15 people. Most seed-stage teams never pay a cent.
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 15 and it's a flat $0.75 per user per month — 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
Most trackers aimed at startups land somewhere around $2–4 per user per month as of 2026 (based on publicly available pricing, which varies by plan and region), often with 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 to 15 and a flat $0.75 per user per month after that — roughly a third of the typical rate, with no minimum. At 30 people that's about $22.50 a month: small enough that nobody has to justify it, and 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 15 people — no credit card
- Slack-first: book and approve time off without leaving chat
- Set up in an afternoon, no HR hire needed
- Flat $0.75/user/month after 15 — roughly a third of typical pricing
- 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 15 people with the full feature set: shared calendar, approvals, accruals, public holidays and the Slack bot. No credit card and no trial countdown. Most seed-stage teams never pay.
- What does it cost once we grow past 15 people?
- A flat $0.75 per user per month, with no minimum seat count. That's roughly a third of what comparable trackers charge as of 2026 (based on publicly available pricing). At 30 people it works out to about $22.50 a month.
- Does it work inside Slack?
- Yes. Your team requests time off from a Slack shortcut, managers approve with one tap, and an optional daily 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.
- 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 the $0.75 plan — 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.