Sesame HR alternative: leave tracking at €1.30 per user, no 15-employee minimum

A Sesame HR alternative is rarely something people search for because Sesame is bad. Sesame HR is one of the fastest-growing HR platforms in Southern Europe: born in Valencia in 2015, financed with a €23 million round and a €50 million facility from BBVA Spark, claiming more than 20,000 companies, with sites in fourteen countries and a product that covers time tracking, shifts, overtime banks, documents, e-signature, payroll, recruiting, performance, surveys, an AI assistant and, as one module among many, time off. Small teams go looking for an alternative after three discoveries. The price starts at €4.75 per employee per month on the Spanish and Italian sites ($3.75 on the English one), but the minimum is 15 employees: a team of five pays for fifteen. The product is a time-tracking platform first, with the API and single sign-on sold as paid add-ons or bundled in the top plan. And the approval flow stops at the app: there is no Slack or Microsoft Teams integration at all, and the interface has no French. Here is the honest, point-by-point case for the alternative.

The short answer: Bueggio HR is the Sesame HR alternative for small teams that need leave tracking and nothing else: one public price of €1.30 per user per month, everything included, no minimum number of employees, no add-ons, one-click approvals from email, Slack and Teams, and statutory leave rules for Italy, France and Spain built in. Sesame HR keeps the time clock with every clock-in method you can name, shift planning, hour-based requests, three-level approval chains, payroll connectors and native mobile apps, and on data protection the two are peers on the essentials: both EU companies hosting in the EU with a public DPA. Choose Sesame if the time clock is your problem and time off comes along for the ride. Choose the alternative if you only wanted to know who is off next week, at a price that works for five people as well as for fifty.

At a glance

	Bueggio HR	Sesame HR
What it is	Staff leave tracking for small teams	All-in-one HR platform built around time tracking, with a Time Off module in every plan (see sesamehr.com)
Price	€1.30 per user/month, everything included (−15% billed yearly), no minimum, no add-ons	Four plans: Essential €4.75, Connect €5.50, Growth €6.25, Scale €8 per employee/month billed yearly on the Spanish and Italian sites ($3.75 to $7 on the English site, no prices on the French one); monthly billing costs more; net of taxes; minimum 15 employees; API and SSO from €0.50 per employee/month each, bundled only in Scale
Free trial	1 month, no card	14 days, no payment details
Languages	English, Italian, French, Spanish	Six interface languages per the help center: English, Spanish (Spain and Mexico), Italian, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil); French is not listed
Data hosting	EU only · Frankfurt, Germany · EU company	EU: OVH and AWS, "France and Germany" per the DPA annex · Spanish company (Valencia) · public DPA and subprocessor list, with US entries for marketing, bug reporting and AI features
Best for	Small teams anywhere in Europe that want dead-simple leave tracking with country rules built in	Companies of 15 or more that need a compliant time clock and want shifts, overtime, documents and time off in the same tool

Pricing: a 15-employee minimum, against one price at every size

Credit first: Sesame HR's pricing page publishes real numbers, which is more than most HR suites do. Four plans, Essential at €4.75 per employee per month billed yearly (€5.25 monthly), up to Scale at €8 (€9 monthly), net of taxes, on the Spanish and Italian sites; $3.75 to $7 on the English site; no figures at all on the French one, where the same four plans end in a contact form. Time off is in every plan, which is good news. The catch is one line of the FAQ: "the minimum is 15 employees", and under fifteen you are invited to write in and "find the best option". The page's own calculator shows what that means: the minimum invoice is the plan price times fifteen, so a team of five on Essential pays €71.25 a month billed yearly, €14.25 per head, and the same €71.25 whether you are three or fifteen. Need the API or single sign-on? Each is an add-on from €0.50 per employee per month, or you move to Scale. Bueggio HR has one plan: €1.30 per user per month with every feature included, €1.105 billed yearly, no minimum, no add-ons, and the same page for a company of five and a company of fifty.

Bueggio HR · everything included €22.10

Sesame HR · Essential, 20 × €4.75 (API and SSO not included) €95

Below fifteen people the gap widens, because Sesame bills at least fifteen employees: a team of five pays €71.25 a month on Essential billed yearly (€78.75 monthly) and €5.53 with Bueggio HR on yearly billing. Adding the API and SSO add-ons to Essential brings the 20-person team to €115; the English site prices Essential at $3.75 per employee, $75 for twenty. Prices read on sesamehr.es/precio, sesamehr.it/prezzo and sesamehr.com/pricing on 1 October 2026.

The contract, read to the end

The price is half of what you sign. Sesame's general terms (last modified 13 July 2026, governed by the law of the Sesame entity you contract with, Spanish law and the courts of Valencia for European customers) are public, so here they are next to ours. Both companies renew automatically and neither refunds an invoice already issued; the differences are the minimum, the notice periods and the exit.

	Bueggio HR	Sesame HR
How you buy	Self-serve: sign up and use it, billed on active users at the public price	Self-serve from the pricing page from 15 employees; under 15, by writing to sales; a tailored plan "designed with an expert" above
Minimum	None: billed on active users, add or remove people whenever you like	15 employees on every plan; seat increases are billed pro rata at once, reductions count only from the next renewal, with no refund or proportional adjustment during the period
Term and renewal	Monthly or yearly, renews automatically	Monthly or yearly, renews automatically "for periods equal to the plan contracted"
Notice to stop a renewal	14 days before the renewal date, by email from an admin account	At least 30 days before the renewal, or 30 days before the next invoice to cancel, from the account panel
Price changes	One public price list, the same for every customer at every size	Sesame may change prices with 60 calendar days' notice; you may cancel with 30 days' notice before the new price applies
Refunds	None once an invoice is issued	None: cancellation "does not give the right to any refund"
Your data after cancellation	Self-serve GDPR export any time; closing the account deletes the organization and everything in it (DPA §6)	The account is blocked for one month and then deleted; a copy of the database in a standard technical format can be requested within that month

Feature-by-feature comparison

	Bueggio HR	Sesame HR
Shared wall chart / team calendar	✓	✓ team calendar with calendar and employee views
Half days	✓	✓ computed from the employee's assigned schedule
Hour-based allowances	Hour counters where the law requires them (ROL, ex-festività); requests are days and half days	✓ requests by day, by hour range or by loose hours; overtime bank
Interface languages	EN · IT · FR · ES, per user	EN · ES (Spain and Mexico) · IT · PT (Portugal and Brazil); French not listed in the help center
Slack integration	✓ booking command, interactive approvals, daily summaries, automatic OOO status	None listed on the integrations directory or in the help center; the API docs suggest building your own Slack bot on top of the API
Microsoft Teams integration	✓ one-click approvals	Not documented
One-click approval from the email, no login	✓	Push notifications; approvals happen in the web app or in the mobile app (bulk or swipe)
Google / Outlook calendar sync	✓ push to both + iCal feeds, included	✓ Google Calendar and Outlook, connected per employee from the Time off section, events created and updated on approval
Country rules: Italian ROL, French RTT, Spanish convenios	✓ built in, enabled by country at signup	Generic policies: working or calendar days, allowances in days or hours; Spanish holidays by province and absence codes mapped for a3innuva; ROL and ex-festività absent from the Italian help center; RTT and congés payés claimed on the French site, with no French help center
Public holidays	✓ 45+ countries, per person	✓ imported by country (Spain by province); the list of countries is not published
Department absence cap and date locks	✓ both included	Date ranges can be blocked ("peak period blocking" sits in the Enterprise tier of the module, Growth and Scale); a cap on simultaneous absences per team is not documented
Multi-level approvals and substitutes	Approver per person; one level by design	✓ up to three validation levels, simple or sequential flows, delegation
Accrual and carry-over	First-year pro-rata from the start date, per-person adjustments, carry-over set per person	✓ pro-rata by contract, seniority-based extra days, carry-over with expiry date, automatic settlement at contract end
SSO	✓ Google and Microsoft, included	SAML with Azure AD, Okta, OneLogin, JumpCloud and Google Workspace, as an add-on from €0.50 per employee/month or in Scale
API and webhooks	✓ REST API + signed webhooks, included	✓ REST API + webhooks (time off request and approval events), as an add-on from €0.50 per employee/month or in Scale
AI assistant connection (MCP)	✓ OAuth per user	No MCP documented; Sesame AI is a writing and analysis assistant sold as an add-on
GDPR export and right to erasure	✓ self-serve, built in, DPA published	DPA and subprocessor list published; a copy of the database on request within a month of termination, then deletion
Time clock, shifts, overtime, payroll, documents, recruiting	Deliberately no: leave tracking only, plus a monthly absence export for your payroll provider	✓ the core of the product: clock-in from app, web, QR, face recognition, NFC, WhatsApp and terminals, shifts with an AI planner, overtime bank, payroll with a3innuva sync, documents and e-signature
Mobile	Installable web app (PWA) + push notifications	✓ native iOS and Android apps, Apple Watch

Five reasons the alternative wins for small teams

1. A price for a team of five, not for fifteen

Sesame's numbers are honest and public, and they are built for companies of fifteen and up: the FAQ says so, the calculator multiplies by fifteen, and under that size you are asked to write in. A studio of six, a clinic of nine or a shop with twelve people pays €71.25 a month on the cheapest plan whatever its real headcount, €14.25 per head at six. Bueggio HR publishes the whole price: €1.30 per user per month, everything included, €1.105 billed yearly, no minimum, no add-ons, no email to sales. Two people pay for two; fifty pay for fifty, at the same rate.

2. A tool, not a time-tracking platform

Sesame HR grew out of mandatory time recording in Spain, and that is still the spine of the product: clock-ins by app, QR, face, NFC, WhatsApp or terminal, geolocation, alerts when a clock-in overlaps approved leave, shifts, overtime banks, and then documents, payroll, recruiting and an AI assistant. That breadth is the product, and it brings configuration with it: schedules per employee before half days can be computed, calendars, validation orders, modules to switch on. Bueggio HR does one thing: request, approve, wall chart. Admins set it up in an afternoon, employees book from their phone without training, and there is no plan ladder because there is one plan. If you are switching for simplicity, do not swap a time clock for another time clock.

3. Approving where the request lands

Sesame handles approvals well inside its own walls: up to three validation levels, delegation, bulk approval, a swipe in the app, push notifications. What it does not do is leave those walls. There is no Slack integration on the integrations directory or in the help center, no Microsoft Teams app, and no way to approve from the email without opening the app; the API documentation suggests building your own Slack bot. 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, and an automatic out-of-office status shows while they are away. Google and Outlook calendars receive the events by push, included in the price.

4. Country rules, already built

Sesame's absence engine is flexible: allowances in days or hours, working or calendar days, pro-rata by contract, seniority steps, carry-over with expiry. Flexible means you build the rules yourself, and the depth stops at the Spanish border: holidays by province and absence codes mapped for a3innuva are real, while the Italian help center never mentions ROL or ex-festività, and the French site promises RTT and congés payés "in line with the Labour Code" without a French help center, a French interface, or an article on working-day counting and fractionnement. Bueggio HR ships with the 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 jours 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. Single sign-on with Google and Microsoft, the API and signed webhooks, calendar push, Slack and Teams, the MCP connector for AI assistants: all in the €1.30. At Sesame, the API and SSO are add-ons from €0.50 per employee per month each, or the reason to move to Scale at €8. The trial lasts a month, not fourteen days, and asks for no card. Leaving is as easy as joining: no fifteen-seat floor to carry, notice is an email 14 days before the renewal date rather than 30, and when you close the account the data is deleted. 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 Sesame HR is genuinely strong

An honest comparison cuts both ways. Sesame HR is a serious company: a decade old, around 350 people, €21 million in annual revenue by its own account, backed by GP Bullhound, PSG and BBVA Spark, with offices in Valencia and Barcelona and a stated push into Italy, France and Germany. The product shows it. It is a real time-tracking platform built for the Spanish time-recording law, with every clock-in method on the market, geolocation and IP restrictions, offline clocking, face-recognition tablets and biometric terminals; shift planning with an AI planner and shift swaps; an overtime bank; documents and e-signature; payroll with absences synced to a3innuva; expenses with cards; recruiting, performance and surveys; none of which Bueggio HR does, by design. Its time-off module is in places deeper than ours: requests by hour range, three-level approval chains with delegation, pro-rata by contract with seniority steps, automatic settlement when a contract ends, worked-public-holiday compensation. It has native iOS and Android apps with Apple Watch support, SAML single sign-on with five identity providers, a REST API with webhooks, and interface languages we do not have, Portuguese for Portugal and Brazil and Mexican Spanish. On data protection it is a peer on the essentials: a Spanish company hosting on OVH and AWS in France and Germany, with a published DPA, a public subprocessor list, a DPO contact, a 24-hour breach notice, and an account that is deleted a month after closure rather than kept for years. Users rate it 4.3 on Capterra across 71 reviews, with ease of use at 4.4. If your problem is the time clock, or you have fifteen people and want shifts, documents and payroll in the same place, Sesame HR is a legitimate choice.

Stay or switch: a two-minute check

• Stay with Sesame HR if you need a compliant time clock, if you use or plan to use shifts, the overtime bank or payroll, if you need hour-range requests or three-level approval chains, or if your team is comfortably above fifteen people.
• Switch to the alternative if time off is the module your team actually opens, if you are under fifteen people and paying for fifteen, 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 SSO and the API should come with the price rather than on top of it.

Switching to the alternative takes an afternoon

1. Export people and balances from Sesame's reports (the holidays and time-off summary) before your renewal date. 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 department caps and date locks replace your blocked periods.
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 Sesame HR alternative for a small team?

For a team that needs leave tracking rather than a time-tracking platform, Bueggio HR: one public plan at €1.30 per user per month with no minimum number of employees and everything included (SSO, API, webhooks, calendar push, approvals in Slack and Teams), an interface in English, Italian, French and Spanish, and statutory rules for Italy, France and Spain built in. Sesame HR remains the better choice if you need a compliant time clock, shifts, an overtime bank or payroll in the same tool, if you want hour-range requests and three-level approvals, or if your company is well above its 15-employee minimum.

How much does Sesame HR cost, and is it free?

Sesame HR has no free plan. On the Spanish and Italian sites it publishes four plans billed yearly: Essential at €4.75, Connect at €5.50, Growth at €6.25 and Scale at €8 per employee per month, net of taxes, with monthly billing costing more (€5.25 to €9); the English site shows $3.75 to $7, and the French site shows no prices. Every plan has a minimum of 15 employees, so the smallest invoice on Essential is €71.25 a month billed yearly whatever your headcount. The API and single sign-on are add-ons from €0.50 per employee per month each, included only in Scale. Contracts renew automatically with 30 days' notice to cancel and no refunds. The free trial lasts 14 days without payment details. Bueggio HR has one plan at €1.30 per user per month (€1.105 billed yearly), no minimum, and a one-month free trial with no card.

Is Sesame HR GDPR compliant?

Yes, credibly: Sesame HR is a Spanish company whose DPA places customer data on OVH and AWS in France and Germany, with a public subprocessor list, a data protection officer contact, a 24-hour breach notification commitment and an ISO 27001 security policy. Two things to know: the common subprocessor list includes US providers for marketing emails and bug reporting, and the AI features send data to OpenAI and Anthropic in the United States; and after cancellation the account is deleted within a month. Bueggio HR has the same posture with fewer moving parts: an EU company with data hosted in Frankfurt and nowhere else, a published DPA, self-serve GDPR export and erasure inside the product, and deletion when you close the account. Between these two, choose on price, simplicity, integrations and country rules, not on the GDPR.