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The reasonable strategies of payment for ecosystem services (PES) play a key role in solving the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development in coastal cities. However, at present, the payment efficiency is relatively low and the determination method of PES is lack. Therefore, in this study, the Jimo district of Qingdao city in China, a typical coastal city, was selected as study area, and the equivalent factor method and marine ecological capital assessment method were used to obtain terrestrial and marine ecosystem services value (ESV) and its tempo-spatial variations from 2010 to 2018. Moreover, the payment efficiency of the sea area and 15 towns over 8 years was measured using the Super-efficient SBM-DEA model based on undesired output. ESV presented a clear reduction over 8 years. The marine ecosystem provided the main service value, and waste treatment, water regulation, and soil formation were the top 3 main functions in the land ecosystem. Regulating services provided the highest component among all functions. The high-value areas were mainly distributed in the northeast and northwest regions and the low-value areas were in the south-central regions. The average payment efficiency of the sea area and 15 towns over 8 years shown a stable trend at a low level. On the basis of the evaluation of ESV and efficiency, a new possible payment scheme including payment order and quota was proposed. The total quota of marine ecosystem was 5.226 billion RMB (88% of the total) and of terrestrial ecosystem was 0.713 billion RMB. Tian Heng, Jin Kou, Yi Fengdian, and Ling Shan are the first 4 priority towns, with compensation amounts of 0.205, 0.083, and 0.063 billion RMB respectively, while the last 3 towns are Tong Ji, Huan Xiu, and Chao Hai accounting for 6.02% of the total. The theoretical payment total quota was 5.939 billion RMB, and which accounted for a low proportion of local GDP. The study can provide some recommendations for making the reasonable and feasible payment schemes for ecosystem services in coastal city, and it is feasible in the practice of ecological environment protection and sustainable development., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)