To achieve a good trade-off between human well-being and economic development, and among ecosystem services, accelerated valuation of ecosystem services is the primary challenge for policy makers of ecological protection and sustainable development throughout the world. In this paper, two main measurement methods of ecosystem services valuation (ESV) are summarized: primary valuation and benefit transfer. And an overview of the latter is provided, including the conception, types, historical research, application constraints, and existing representative databases available for benefit transfer. Based on these, the advantages and general limitations of the two measurement methods are described, which show that the primary valuation based on ecological functions is more applicable on a local scale for fine management, is accurate but relatively difficult, time-consuming, and costly, whereas the benefit transfer based on similar habitats is more applicable on national or regional scales for estimation and rating, is fast but provides little information and has large uncertainties and many influencing factors relatively. Subsequently, the integrated valuation models and tools for combining different methods in one or more measurement modalities are also presented. Furthermore, by analyzing the contradiction between the current mainstream valuation methods and the increasing assessment requirements, and referring to the ecosystem services cascade, we finally propose to establish a simplified predictive valuation model based on key ecosystem characteristics. The objective is to simplify the traditional valuation process, shorten the cycle, improve the previous benefit transfer, and promote the multi-scale and wide-scale inventory of ecosystem services as soon as possible.