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 Team Lead
Approves leave for twelve people across two shifts and finds out about clashes too late. Wants requests and approvals on the phone, a named substitute on every request, minimum-staffing warnings before approval, and a team calendar that shows who is away without showing why.
absence.io
Timetastic
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Entitlements & German leave rules
absence.io
Remaining leave is kept permanently up to date, additional entitlements such as tenure-based and special leave are recorded, and parental leave appears as an absence type, which covers basic annual entitlements with balances and custom leave types. We found no public information on part-time proration, carry-over with an expiry date and notice, public holidays per federal state, or half-day and hourly leave, so I cannot place the product above the basic level.
Timetastic
Holiday allowance records with approvals and configurable leave types are documented, so entitlements and balances do live in the product. I found no public information on part-time proration, public holidays per German federal state, carry-over with expiry, or half-day and hourly leave — exactly what my part-timers across two shifts would need.
Requests, approvals & team calendar
absence.io
The everyday flow is there: request and approval in a few clicks, native iOS and Android apps, a real-time team calendar that syncs with Google and Outlook plus subscription links, and approvals given straight from Teams or Slack with a daily broadcast of who is away. We found no public information on approvers configurable per team or department, push or email notifications on requests, substitutes named on a request, minimum-staffing warnings before approval, or a calendar view that hides the absence reason — the exact things I need across two shifts.
Timetastic
Requests and approvals run from a mobile app with notifications, a shared calendar, calendar connections feeding my regular calendar, and Slack and Teams updates — that is the everyday flow I want. But the minimum-staffing protections I need are explicitly marked as coming soon (locked dates and maximum absent), and I found no public information on a substitute named on the request, multi-level approval chains, or a per-request history.
Sick leave, eAU & continued pay
absence.io
Sick days are recorded as their own type and categorised by whether a doctor's note exists, with a child-needing-care category, which is basic sick-leave recording. We found no public information on eAU retrieval from the statutory health insurers, on counting sick days towards the six-week continued-pay limit, or on BEM thresholds, so nothing above the basic level is evidenced.
Timetastic
I found no public information on sick notifications, eAU retrieval, counting towards the six-week continued-pay limit, or child sick days on any page we captured; the leave-type page only says generically that all types of absence can be booked and tracked.
Payroll handover, time tracking & API
absence.io
A documented REST API, version 2 with OAuth 2.0 and Hawk, reaches absences, users and remaining leave; absences can be exported and connected to DATEV or other accounting systems, the direct DATEV connection covers expenses and travel costs, and time tracking and absence management sit in one system so balances stay together. We found no public information on absence types mapped to configurable payroll codes, monthly closing that locks past periods, or webhooks, so it stops short of a full payroll handover.
Timetastic
Payroll-ready timesheets and a payroll data export exist in the Rota and Time Clock plan, with named Sage 50 and QuickBooks integrations and an API listed, which gets absences and hours toward payroll. I found no public information on absence types mapped to payroll codes, a monthly period lock, webhooks, or published API limits.
Health data, access & works council
absence.io
A data processing agreement is offered, general deletion and retention statements are published, and the vendor openly documents that it processes sick-day categories, but that is where the evidence ends. We found no public information on who may see a sickness reason or certificate, whether colleagues see only that someone is absent, access logging for health-related records, or documentation aimed at a works council — as a team lead I need the calendar to show who is away without showing why, and nothing published speaks to that.
Timetastic
Four preset access levels with customisable management roles, a data processing agreement, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and concrete retention rules (six years after closure, support conversations auto-deleted at twelve months, account deletion on cancellation) are all documented. I found no public information on sickness reasons restricted to named roles, logged access to health-related records, or documentation aimed at a works agreement — the shared calendar shows who is off, but nothing states whether colleagues can see why.
European sovereignty
absence.io
The contracting entity is absence.io GmbH in Munich with a German commercial register entry and VAT ID, hosting is stated to be exclusively on ISO-certified servers in Germany, a data processing agreement is offered, and Softgarden GmbH is named as sole owner. A subcontractor list is published online and EU processors are named, but we found no public information on the hosting infrastructure by name or on a data processing agreement covering sickness data as special-category processing.
Timetastic
The contracting entity is Timetastic Limited of Wilmslow, England under the law of England and Wales, so the contract sits outside the EU, even though a named EU data representative and a published processor list exist alongside the data processing agreement. Where absence and sickness data is actually hosted is not established on the captured pages, and ISO 27001 is stated while no BSI C5 or equivalent appears.
Pricing transparency
absence.io
Starter, Pro and Complete are each priced publicly at 2,99€, 4,99€ and 7,99€ per Nutzer pro Monat, prices are stated net per user, there is no minimum term and monthly cancellation is possible, a 14-day trial needs no credit card, and the tiers say what sits where — time tracking and the personnel file from Pro, API and travel expenses in Complete, with all integrations included at no additional cost. An annual figure is nearly computable; we found no public information on minimum users or any setup fees.
Timetastic
Every tier is priced publicly — Business at $1.50 per user per month, Pro at $2.50 per user per month, Rota and Time Clock at $5.50 per user per month — billed monthly after a free month with no card required, and the pricing page states what each tier includes. VAT treatment is not given, and I found no public information on setup fees or add-on prices, so I cannot compute a full annual invoice from the pages alone.
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.