Best PTO Tracking Software, Free and Paid (2026)

Free vs paid PTO tracking software: what you're actually giving up

The 'free PTO tracking software' search results are dominated by real, working free tools — Day Off, Jibble, and vacationtracker.com all offer a genuinely free tier, not just a trial. That makes it a hard keyword for a paid tool like LeaveSheet to claim honestly; the more useful question isn't 'which one is free' but 'what does the free tier not do, and when does that start to matter.'

The pattern across free plans is consistent: one approver, one location, one department, or one leave type, and automatic accrual with tenure tiers and caps is usually reserved for a paid tier. If your team fits inside those limits, free is genuinely free. Once you add a second approver, a second office, or need accrual calculated for you instead of tracked manually, most of these tools ask you to upgrade.

'PTO tracker app' searches skew toward native mobile apps — Day Off and Vacation Tracker both have dedicated iOS/Android/Microsoft Teams listings. LeaveSheet is a web app only, accessed from a browser on any device, with no install required — a different tradeoff, not necessarily a worse one, depending on whether your team wants an app icon or just a link.

The options, compared honestly

LeaveSheet ($1.50/employee/month, $9/month minimum, 14-day free trial, no credit card): automatic accrual with two tenure-based rate tiers, annual caps, and carryover included at its single price, plus US federal holidays seeded automatically, half-day requests, a team calendar, and a styled Excel export alongside CSV.

Day Off (free, verified August 22, 2026): a genuinely free PTO and leave tracker with dedicated iOS and Android apps, popular enough to rank for both 'free pto tracking software' and 'pto tracker app.' Feature limits on the free tier aren't detailed on the pages we checked — check the app directly for current caps on team size or approvers.

Jibble (free, verified August 22, 2026): markets itself explicitly as free PTO tracking software alongside its time-clock product. As with Day Off, exact limits on the free tier weren't published on the page we checked.

Vacation Tracker (verified July 16, 2026: free plan for one approver/location/department/leave type; Core $2/user/month, $25/month minimum, no automatic accrual; Complete $4/user/month, $75/month minimum, with accrual, caps, and hourly leave): the free tier is real but narrow, and the accrual engine only exists on Complete — more than double LeaveSheet's entry price for that capability.

vacationtracker.com (a separate domain from vacationtracker.io) also lists itself as a free PTO absence tracker on the page we checked (August 22, 2026); we have not independently verified whether it's affiliated with vacationtracker.io.

BambooHR bundles PTO tracking into a full HR platform (hiring, onboarding, performance, time off) rather than selling it standalone, and does not publish pricing on the page we checked.

What the 'free' plans really include

Every free PTO tool we checked (Day Off, Jibble, vacationtracker.com) is a real product, not a trial that expires — but none of the pages we checked spelled out exact caps on team size, approvers, or leave types for their free tier the way Vacation Tracker's pricing page does (1 approver, 1 location, 1 department, 1 leave type).

For a very small team with one person approving everything and no accrual math to worry about, any of these free tools can work. The moment you need automatic accrual calculated for you, tenure-based rate changes, or more than one approver or department, you're likely looking at a paid tier somewhere — the only question is whose.

What LeaveSheet doesn't do

LeaveSheet does not have a native mobile app, a free plan, Slack or Microsoft Teams integrations, single sign-on (SSO), a public API, or hourly/TOIL-based leave tracking — it tracks days-based PTO, sick, and personal leave only. If a dedicated phone app or a no-cost starting tier matters more than accrual accuracy, Day Off, Jibble, or Vacation Tracker's free tier are the better starting point.

Our pick by team size and budget

One approver, simple policies, comfortable with a phone app: Day Off or Jibble, both genuinely free.

Want a $0 spreadsheet instead of an app, and fewer than about 10 employees: the free PTO tracker Excel template below.

Need automatic accrual with tenure tiers included at the base price, US small team: LeaveSheet at $1.50/employee/month, $9/month minimum.

Already living in Slack or Microsoft Teams and want accrual there too: Vacation Tracker's Complete tier at $4/user/month, $75/month minimum.