Personio alternative: leave tracking at €1.30 per user, no demo, no setup fee, live the same afternoon

A Personio alternative is rarely something people search for because Personio is bad. Personio is the reference HR platform of the European mid-market: born in Munich in 2015, more than 16,000 customer companies covering over 1.5 million employees by its own April 2026 announcement, its first profitable quarter behind it, and a product that covers the employee file, documents and e-signatures, payroll, recruiting, performance, surveys, compensation, whistleblowing, workforce planning, an AI assistant and, as one module among many, absence management. Small teams go looking for an alternative after three discoveries. There is no price on the pricing page: two plans, Core and Core Pro, every button says "Book a demo", the quote arrives after a call, and a one-time setup fee "dependent on your company size" comes with it. Going live takes 3 to 10 weeks after the implementation kickoff, by Personio's own help center. And the contract is built for the mid-market: a 12-month minimum, a minimum number of users written into the order form, 90 days' notice to stop a renewal, and up to 5% more at each renewal. Here is the honest, point-by-point case for the alternative.

The short answer: Bueggio HR is the Personio alternative for small, fast-moving teams that need leave tracking and not an HR department in software form: one public price of €1.30 per user per month, everything included, no quote, no setup fee, no minimum users, live the same afternoon, one-click approvals from email, Slack and Teams, and statutory leave rules for Italy, France and Spain built in. Personio keeps the full HR platform: payroll, recruiting, performance, documents and e-signature, workforce planning, multi-level approval chains with substitutes, hourly absences, 18 interface languages and native apps, and on data protection the two are peers on the essentials: both EU companies hosting in the EU with a published DPA. Choose Personio if you are building an HR function for a company of fifty to five thousand. Choose the alternative if you are a team of five to fifty that just wants to know who is off next week, without a demo call, an implementation project or a procurement file.

At a glance

	Bueggio HR	Personio
What it is	Staff leave tracking for small teams	All-in-one HR platform for companies of 10 to 5,000 employees, with absence management as one module of the Core plan (see personio.com)
Price	€1.30 per user/month, everything included (−15% billed yearly), no minimum, no setup fee	Not published: two plans (Core and Core Pro) and paid add-on apps, quoted after a demo; one-time setup fee based on company size; all active users count as licenses; 10% off for a yearly plan paid upfront
Free trial	1 month, no card	14 days, one trial per customer, account blocked afterwards
Time to go live	The same afternoon: sign up, invite, book	"3 to 10 weeks after your implementation kickoff meeting", with an implementation specialist; configuration support, data migration and training as paid professional services
Languages	English, Italian, French, Spanish	18 interface languages, including all four of ours; help center in German, English and Spanish only
Data hosting	EU only · Frankfurt, Germany · EU company	AWS in the European Union (Frankfurt "and other European regions") · German company (Munich) · public DPA · subprocessor list inside the app
Best for	Small teams anywhere in Europe that want dead-simple leave tracking with country rules built in	Companies building an HR function that want payroll, recruiting, performance, documents and absences on one employee database

Pricing: a demo and a quote, against one public price

Credit first: Personio's pricing page is clear about how it works, even if it never shows a number. Two plans: Core, "everything you need for a foundation for HR excellence", and Core Pro, the "most popular", which adds position management, unlimited documents and e-signatures, unlimited legal entities and "API access for custom integrations". Absence management is in both. Then the apps: recruiting, surveys, performance, compensation, whistleblowing, premium support with a sandbox, payroll. What the page does not show is what any of it costs: "our pricing depends on several factors, including the number of employees at your company and whether you choose to add any extra features", and "to get a custom quote, book a demo". Two more lines matter. "When you initially set up your account, there will be a one-time fee dependent on your company size." And the yearly plan has "a minimum run-time of 12 months", paid upfront by invoice, renewed for another twelve unless you cancel "at least three months before the end of the contract". Bueggio HR has one plan: €1.30 per user per month with every feature included, €1.105 billed yearly, no quote, no setup fee, no minimum users, and the same page for a company of five and a company of fifty. A 20-person team pays €22.10 a month on yearly billing, €265 a year, and knows it before signing up.

Bueggio HR · sign up, invite the team, book same afternoon

Personio · fastest launch after kickoff 3 weeks

Personio · longest launch after kickoff 10 weeks

We chart time rather than money because Personio publishes no price: the quote depends on headcount, plan and apps, plus the one-time setup fee, and third-party estimates contradict each other, so we do not repeat them. The kickoff itself comes after the demo, the quote and the signed order form. Personio's help center, "Frequently asked questions about your implementation", read on 5 October 2026.

The contract, read to the end

The price is half of what you sign. Personio's general terms and conditions (German law, courts of Munich) are public, so here they are next to ours. Both companies renew automatically and neither refunds an invoice already issued; the differences are the committed users, the notice periods, the renewal price and the exit.

	Bueggio HR	Personio
How you buy	Self-serve: sign up and use it, billed on active users at the public price	Demo, custom quote and a signed order form; a one-time setup fee based on company size
Minimum	None: billed on active users, add or remove people whenever you like	"A minimum user number commitment, established in the Order form, applies for the Subscription Term"; added users are billed pro rata at once
Term and renewal	Monthly or yearly, renews automatically	Monthly or yearly; the yearly plan has an initial term of at least 12 months, paid upfront, and renews yearly
Notice to stop a renewal	14 days before the renewal date, by email from an admin account	15 days before the renewal on a monthly plan; 90 days on a yearly plan; in writing, email accepted
Price changes	One public price list, the same for every customer at every size	At each renewal Personio "may increase the fees payable by the customer by up to five percent (5%)"; usage-based fees, including AI overage, are billed monthly in arrears
Refunds and downgrades	None once an invoice is issued; remove users any time, you simply pay for fewer	Downgrades and app removals follow the same notice periods; "the customer is not entitled to a (pro rata) refund"
Your data after cancellation	Self-serve GDPR export any time; closing the account deletes the organization and everything in it (DPA §6)	Self-service export for 30 days after termination, then "the data shall be deleted"; the DPA adds that the customer "is solely responsible for the timely export of their data"

Feature-by-feature comparison

	Bueggio HR	Personio
Shared wall chart / team calendar	✓	✓ team calendar in a greyed-out or in-colour view per absence type, sorted alphabetically
Half days	✓	✓ on the first and last day, when the policy allows it
Hour-based allowances	Hour counters where the law requires them (ROL, ex-festività); requests are days and half days	✓ "part of the day" requests with start and end times; absence types measured in hours
Interface languages	EN · IT · FR · ES, per user	✓ 18 languages per user, with some elements staying in the company's default language; help center in DE, EN and ES only
Slack integration	✓ booking command, interactive approvals, daily summaries, automatic OOO status	Channel updates and automatic status for time off; no requests or approvals from Slack; full days only; status needs a paid Slack plan; updates always in Central European Time
Microsoft Teams integration	✓ one-click approvals	Daily channel notifications only: "it's not possible to request time off directly through MS Teams"; setup needs a Microsoft Global Administrator
One-click approval from the email, no login	✓	Approvals in the web app or the mobile app
Google / Outlook calendar sync	✓ push to both + iCal feeds, included; events carry the leave type	✓ iCal subscription (anyone with the link sees the events) or direct sync to each employee's own calendar: full days only, every event titled "Absent", one way, no public holidays
Country rules: Italian ROL, French RTT, Spanish convenios	✓ built in, enabled by country at signup	Policy templates "for guidance only" to adjust to local law; special fixed rules only in the German and Dutch templates; nothing on ROL, RTT, ouvrables or convenios in the help center
Public holidays	✓ 45+ countries, per person	✓ system bank-holiday calendars assigned per company or workplace, plus custom calendars; the list of countries is not published
Department absence cap and date locks	✓ both included	"Can I block my employees from requesting holidays on specific dates? No, this is not possible"; overlapping requests are flagged; no cap on simultaneous absences documented
Multi-level approvals and substitutes	Approver per person; one level by design	✓ approval chains with ordered steps, supervisor's supervisor, roles, delegation, substitutes; types without a rule are auto-approved
Accrual and carry-over	First-year pro-rata from the start date, per-person adjustments, carry-over set per person	✓ yearly to monthly granting, tenure-based extra days, proration for joiners, leavers and part-time, carry-over limits with expiry
SSO	✓ Google and Microsoft, included	✓ Google, Microsoft Entra ID, SAML 2.0 and one OpenID Connect connection
API and webhooks	✓ REST API + signed webhooks, included	REST API v1 (v2 in beta) + webhooks, Core Pro plan only; marketplace integrations on every plan; sandbox only with Premium Support
AI assistant connection (MCP)	✓ OAuth per user, included	MCP server in beta, "not available for everyone yet", write access off by default, approving time off "coming soon"; Personio Assistant with usage-based AI credits
GDPR export and right to erasure	✓ self-serve, built in, DPA published	DPA published; self-service export for 30 days after termination, then deletion; subprocessor list inside the app
Payroll, recruiting, performance, documents, e-signature, surveys	Deliberately no: leave tracking only, plus a monthly absence export for your payroll provider	✓ the core of the product: employee file, documents and e-signatures, payroll, recruiting, performance, surveys, compensation, whistleblowing, workforce planning, workflow automation
Mobile	Installable web app (PWA) + push notifications	✓ native iOS and Android apps with a Who's Out Today widget

Five reasons the alternative wins for small, fast-moving teams

1. A price you can read before the demo

Personio sells the way enterprise software sells: a demo, a conversation about headcount and apps, a custom quote, a one-time setup fee sized to your company, an order form with a minimum number of users, a 12-month term paid upfront. None of that is wrong for a 400-person company with an HR team. For twelve people in a studio or a clinic it is a procurement project before the first day off is booked. Bueggio HR publishes the whole price: €1.30 per user per month, everything included, €1.105 billed yearly, no setup fee, no minimum, no call. Two people pay for two; fifty pay for fifty, at the same rate, and the price does not rise 5% at renewal because there is no renewal negotiation.

2. Live this afternoon, not in ten weeks

Personio's own help center sets the expectation: "you can expect to launch Personio 3 to 10 weeks after your implementation kickoff meeting", with an implementation specialist, a mandatory time-off import, and configuration support, data migration and end-user training available as paid professional services. Again, reasonable for a platform that will run your payroll. Bueggio HR is built for teams with less bureaucracy and more momentum: sign up, pick your country, invite the team by email, and the first request is approved the same afternoon. Country defaults, holiday calendars and leave types are already there; the only configuration is the one you want to make.

3. Approving where the request lands

Personio's approvals are rich inside Personio: ordered steps, the supervisor's supervisor, roles, delegation when the approver is away. Outside Personio they stop. The Teams integration "supports channel notifications only" and "it's not possible to request time off directly through MS Teams"; the Slack integration posts daily channel updates and sets an automatic status, full days only, with nothing about requesting or approving from Slack. Calendar sync writes an event titled "Absent" into each employee's own calendar, full days only, one way. Bueggio HR closes the loop wherever the notification arrives: approve or decline with one click from the email without logging in, from the interactive Slack message or from Teams; employees book from Slack with a command; Google and Outlook receive the leave type, half days included, by push.

4. Country rules, already built

Personio's absence engine is flexible and well documented: policies per type, granting from yearly to monthly, tenure steps, carry-over with expiry, proration for part-timers. Flexible means you build the rules yourself, and the templates say so: "Personio provides templates for guidance only. Review and adjust them to ensure your policies comply with local legal requirements", with special fixed rules only for Germany and the Netherlands. The help center, available in German, English and Spanish, has no article on Italian ROL or ex-festività, on French counting in jours ouvrables or ouvrés, RTT or fractionnement, or on Spanish convenios. Bueggio HR ships with those rules implemented and switches them on by country at signup: Italian ROL and ex-festività counters with the INPS protocol number on sick leave, French counting in ouvrables or ouvrés with RTT and fractionnement days, Spanish convenio extras, libre disposición and regional calendars, public holidays for 45+ countries chosen per person.

5. Everything included, including the exit

Nothing on this page costs extra or needs a bigger plan. Single sign-on with Google and Microsoft, the API and signed webhooks, calendar push, Slack and Teams, the MCP connector for AI assistants, date locks and department caps: all in the €1.30. At Personio the public API is "Core Pro plan only", the sandbox comes with Premium Support, the MCP server is in beta and not available to everyone, and blocking dates is "not possible". The trial lasts a month, not fourteen days, and asks for no card. Leaving is as easy as joining: no user commitment to carry, notice is an email 14 days before the renewal date rather than 90, and when you close the account the data is deleted, rather than being yours to export within 30 days. We think a €1.30 tool should be as easy to leave as to adopt; that is also why we publish the DPA and the terms in full.

Where Personio is genuinely strong

An honest comparison cuts both ways. Personio is the most established HR platform in continental Europe for the mid-market: a decade old, more than 16,000 customers and 1.5 million employees on the platform by its own account, profitable since the first quarter of 2026, a B Corp, ISO 27001 and ISO 27017 certified. The product shows it. It is a real HR system of record: one employee database that feeds documents and e-signatures, onboarding, payroll, recruiting, performance reviews, surveys, compensation, whistleblowing, workforce planning and workflow automation, none of which Bueggio HR does, by design. Its absence module is in places deeper than ours: hourly and open-ended requests, multi-step approval chains with delegation and substitutes, granting from yearly to monthly with tenure steps, proration for part-timers, certificates required after a set number of sick days, an AI assistant that answers "how many vacation days do I have left". It has native iOS and Android apps, SSO with Google, Entra ID, SAML and OpenID Connect, a REST API with webhooks, an MCP server in beta, and 18 interface languages where we have four. On data protection it is a peer on the essentials: a German company hosting on AWS in the European Union, a published DPA under German law, a data protection officer, a trust center with its certifications. Users rate it 4.3 on Capterra across more than 300 reviews. If you are building an HR function, or you have a hundred people and want payroll, recruiting and absences on one record, Personio is a legitimate choice.

Stay or switch: a two-minute check

• Stay with Personio if you use or plan to use payroll, recruiting, performance or documents on the same employee record, if you need hourly requests or multi-step approval chains, if you have an HR team to run the implementation, or if your company is comfortably above fifty people and growing.
• Switch to the alternative if time off is the screen your team actually opens, if you want the price before the demo and a tool that is live this afternoon, if approvals belong in email, Slack or Teams rather than in another app, if you want Italian, French or Spanish rules ready on day one, or if the API, SSO and date locks should come with the price rather than with a bigger plan.

Switching to the alternative takes an afternoon

1. Export people and balances from Personio's absence reports, or use the 30-day self-service export after you give notice (90 days before the renewal on a yearly plan). Import them into Bueggio HR with a CSV, or invite everyone by email.
2. Set up leave types and allowances. Country defaults (national and regional holidays, ROL and ex-festività counters, RTT, convenio days) apply at signup; remaining balances are entered per person as adjustments, and date locks plus department caps cover what Personio cannot block.
3. Book from day one. The team requests leave from their phones and managers approve with one click from email, Slack or Teams. The first month is free, no card, and cancelling later is an email.

Want the whole market first? Read our ranking of the best leave tracking apps.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Personio alternative for a small team?

For a team that needs leave tracking rather than a full HR platform, Bueggio HR: one public plan at €1.30 per user per month with no quote, no setup fee and no minimum users, everything included (SSO, API, webhooks, calendar push, approvals in Slack and Teams, date locks), live the same afternoon, an interface in English, Italian, French and Spanish, and statutory rules for Italy, France and Spain built in. Personio remains the better choice if you want payroll, recruiting, performance and documents on one employee record, if you need hourly requests and multi-step approval chains, or if you have an HR team and a 3-to-10-week implementation is a reasonable investment.

How much does Personio cost, and is there a free plan?

Personio publishes no prices. Its pricing page lists two plans, Core and Core Pro, plus paid add-on apps such as recruiting, surveys, performance, compensation, whistleblowing and payroll; the quote depends on headcount and apps and comes after a demo. There is a one-time setup fee based on company size, a yearly plan paid upfront with a 12-month minimum and a 10% discount, a minimum number of users written into the order form, up to 5% more at each renewal and no pro-rata refunds. There is no free plan; the free trial lasts 14 days. Bueggio HR has one plan at €1.30 per user per month (€1.105 billed yearly), no setup fee, no minimum, and a one-month free trial with no card.

Is Personio GDPR compliant?

Yes, credibly: Personio is a German company that hosts customer data on AWS in the European Union, publishes a data processing agreement under German law, names a data protection officer and holds ISO 27001 and ISO 27017 certifications. Three things to know: the subprocessor list and the technical measures are available inside the product rather than on the public site; the DPA allows processing in any EU or EEA state or in a country with an adequacy decision, without committing to a single region; and after the contract ends the data stays available for self-service export for 30 days, then is deleted, with the customer responsible for exporting in time. Bueggio HR has the same posture with fewer moving parts: an EU company with data hosted in Frankfurt and nowhere else, a published DPA with its subprocessors, self-serve GDPR export and erasure inside the product, and deletion when you close the account. Between these two, choose on price, time to value, integrations and country rules, not on the GDPR.