As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates absence.io 2/5 and Timetastic 2/5 in Absence Management. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick absence.io and 2 pick Timetastic. absence.io scores higher on 5 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty, Sick leave, eAU & continued pay, Pricing transparency, plus 2 more). Timetastic scores higher on 2 of 7 criteria (Health data, access & works council and Requests, approvals & team calendar). Provenance — absence.io: EU-Made; Timetastic: UK / wider Europe. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
absence.io carries the higher mean on pricing transparency (7.0 vs 6.0, six judges lean absence.io), sovereignty (6.3 vs 3.2, six lean absence.io), sick leave and eAU (3.0 vs 0.7, six lean absence.io), payroll handover (5.0 vs 4.7, two lean absence.io, four tie) and leave policies (3.2 vs 2.8, one lean absence.io, five tie). Timetastic carries the higher mean on absence data protection (4.0 vs 2.5, five judges lean Timetastic) and requests and approvals (5.0 vs 4.5, three lean Timetastic). The weighted totals split by judge: the data protection officer, integrator and skeptic score absence.io higher (4.6 vs 3.6, 4.6 vs 4, 4.4 vs 4.1), while the team lead and payroll accountant score Timetastic higher (4.1 vs 4.3, 4.2 vs 4.4). Sovereignty attributes list absence.io's data residency as EU only and Timetastic's as unknown. With the lean differing by judge and by criterion, this head-to-head declares no winner.
Choose absence.io if
You must run German sick-leave and eAU processes: six judges lean absence.io on sick leave and eAU (3.0 vs 0.7), and most judges recorded no rating for Timetastic, finding no public information on sick notifications, certificates or the six-week continued-pay count.
You need full prices before you commit: six judges lean absence.io on pricing transparency (7.0 vs 6.0) — Starter 2,99€, Pro 4,99€ and Complete 7,99€ per user per month, net, with a 10% annual discount and monthly cancellation.
Your payroll runs through DATEV: absence.io leads payroll handover 5.0 to 4.7, two judges leaning its way, scored on a DATEV connection covering expenses and travel cost reports.
You require EU-only data residency: absence.io's data residency is listed as EU only, six judges lean absence.io on sovereignty (6.3 vs 3.2), and hosting is stated exclusively on ISO-certified servers in Germany.
Your buying panel is led by a data protection officer, integrator or skeptic: their weighted totals favor absence.io (4.6 vs 3.6, 4.6 vs 4, 4.4 vs 4.1).
Choose Timetastic if
Absence data protection is your gate: five judges lean Timetastic (4.0 vs 2.5), while absence.io's judges split 2 to 4 there, with lower scores citing no public information on who may see a sickness reason or access logging.
Your team approves time off from phones and chat tools: three judges lean Timetastic on requests and approvals (5.0 vs 4.5), scored on mobile approvals, a shared calendar and Slack and Teams updates.
Your contracts run under English law: Timetastic's legal entity jurisdiction is GB, an EU data representative is named, and English law governs.
Your buying panel mirrors the team lead and payroll accountant: their weighted totals favor Timetastic (4.1 vs 4.3 and 4.2 vs 4.4).
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Payroll Accountant
Closes payroll in DATEV every month and corrects whatever arrived late. Wants absences exported with the right payroll codes, the eAU result attached to the sick day, the six-week continued-pay limit counted per illness, and past months locked once they are paid.
absence.io
Timetastic
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Entitlements & German leave rules
absence.io
Leave requests with approval, a real-time team calendar and remaining-leave balances kept current are the documented core, and the processed data categories list parental leave, tenure-based extra days and special leave as distinct types. I found no public information on part-time proration, public holidays per federal state, configurable carry-over with expiry and notice before leave lapses, or half-day and hourly leave, so I would still compute entitlements outside the tool.
Timetastic
Annual entitlements and remaining balances are covered — holiday allowance records with approvals, configurable leave types and per-type booking limits — which is the basic level. We found no public information on part-time proration, carry-over with expiry and notices, public holidays per German federal state, half-day or hourly leave, or special and parental leave rules, so none of the German leave mechanics appear.
Requests, approvals & team calendar
absence.io
Requests, approvals and a real-time team calendar are the homepage pitch, approvals can be given straight from Slack and Microsoft Teams, calendars sync with Outlook and Google through ICS feeds, and native iOS and Android apps exist. I found no public information on multi-level approval chains, substitutes named on the request, minimum staffing rules or blackout periods, delegation while an approver is away, or calendar visibility that hides the absence reason.
Timetastic
The everyday flow is documented: record and approve every kind of time off, a shared calendar of who's off, a mobile and desktop app, notifications, and absences feeding automatically into external calendars, with Slack and Teams integrations including a daily who's-off update. The pricing page itself marks locked dates and maximum-absent staffing rules as coming soon, and we found no public information on multi-level approval chains, named substitutes, delegation or a logged history per request.
Sick leave, eAU & continued pay
absence.io
Sick days are recorded as their own absence type and are categorised with or without an incapacity certificate, with a category for a child needing care. I found no public information on eAU retrieval from the statutory insurers, on counting sick days towards the six-week continued-pay limit per illness, or on BEM thresholds — the certificate status is all payroll could rely on here.
Timetastic
We found no public information on sick leave as its own absence type, certificate uploads, electronic certificate of incapacity retrieval, or how sick days count towards the six-week continued-pay and BEM thresholds. The leave-types page states only that all types of absence can be booked and recorded, with nothing sickness-specific on any page we read.
Payroll handover, time tracking & API
absence.io
DATEV is named, but the direct connection covers expenses and travel cost reports only; absences and time tracking reach DATEV or other accounting systems through exports or the open REST API (v2, OAuth 2.0 and Hawk, JSON), and time tracking is the vendor's own module from the Pro plan upward. I found no public information on mapping absence types to configurable payroll codes, on a monthly closing that locks past periods once they are paid, or on webhooks and published API limits — the period lock is what I miss most.
Timetastic
A payroll data export and payroll-ready timesheets sit in the Rota & Time Clock plan, with named integrations for Sage 50 and QuickBooks, an API among the listed features, and time tracking built into the vendor's own module. We found no public information on DATEV or other German payroll systems, on mapping absence types to payroll codes, or on a monthly closing that locks past periods — and on cancellation all data is deleted from live servers with backups purged within 10 to 14 days, so a self-service backup beforehand is the only way out with the history.
Health data, access & works council
absence.io
A data processing agreement, a named data protection officer, the Bavarian supervisory authority and deletion when the purpose ends are documented, and the privacy notices confirm sickness days and certificate status are processed. I found no public information on roles restricting who may see a sickness reason or certificate, on access logging, on retention rules per absence record, or on any documentation aimed at a works agreement.
Timetastic
Four preset access levels with customisable roles and permissions plus a need-to-know rule govern who sees data, a data processing agreement is offered, and retention is documented — six years for accounting and legal purposes, 12-month automatic deletion of support conversations, and deletion on cancellation. We found no public information on restricting sickness reasons or certificates to named roles, logged access to health-related records, or documentation aimed at a works council or works agreement.
European sovereignty
absence.io
Hosting is stated exclusively on ISO-certified servers in Germany, the contracting entity is absence.io GmbH in Munich with a Munich commercial-register entry, Softgarden GmbH is named as sole owner, and EU processors (UserLane, eKomi, Softgarden) plus Stripe and Mailjet are listed with an online subcontractor list referenced. The hosting infrastructure itself is not named, the complete subcontractor list sits on a separate page I did not see, and the privacy notices state personal data goes to Google LLC in the USA for the website, so I stop short of full marks.
Timetastic
The contracting entity is Timetastic Limited of Wilmslow, England, under the laws of England and Wales, with a privacy policy, a data processing agreement and a published processor list, and an EU Data Representative named for EU residents. Where the data is hosted is not established — the pages say it is proudly built in the UK and Canada, which speaks to where it is built — so the level reached is policy and agreement with the contracting entity outside the EU.
Pricing transparency
absence.io
Every tier is priced publicly — Starter 2,99€, Pro 4,99€ and Complete 7,99€ per user per month, net — with a 10% annual discount, no minimum term, monthly cancellation, a 14-day trial without payment details, and per-tier feature lists showing time tracking in Pro and the API in Complete. I found no public information on a minimum user count or priced add-ons — the NGO special conditions carry no figure — and no eAU feature is documented whose tier placement could be stated.
Timetastic
All three plans are priced publicly with basis and period — $1.50, $2.50 and $5.50 per user per month, charged monthly, with a one-month free trial and no card required — and tier contents are listed, including calendar connections and the payroll data export inside Rota & Time Clock. We found no public information on add-on prices, minimum users, setup fees or VAT treatment, and the captured pages give different plan names for calendar connections (Basic) than the pricing tiers (Business).
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
absence.io
Timetastic
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates both 2/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick absence.io and 2 pick Timetastic. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is absence.io or Timetastic European?
absence.io is European (EU-Made). Timetastic is European (UK / wider Europe). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do absence.io and Timetastic store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — absence.io: Default not stated; pages mention Germany. Timetastic: its pages as captured do not say.