Payments for ecosystem services (PES) received a lot of academic attention in the past years. However, the concept remains loose and many different conservation approaches are published under the 'PES label'. We reviewed 457 articles obtained in a structured literature search in order to present an overview of the PES literature. This paper (1) illustrates the different analytical perspectives on PES concepts and types, (2) shows the geographic focus of PES research and (3) identifies the major foci of the overall PES research. The paper finally (4) identifies differences and similarities in conservation programs and main research topics between developing and industrialized countries to (5) disclose potentials for research synergies, should research experiences in the two types of countries be exchanged more deliberately. We demonstrate that only few publications describe Coasean PES approaches. The majority of research refers to national governmental payment programs. The overall design of national PES programs in Latin America resembles the design of those in the US and EU considerably. Programs in the US and EU have been in place longer than most of the frequently published Latin American schemes. However the former are hardly considered in the international PES literature as research is usually published under different terminologies.