Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is an important policy aiming to promote environmental protection. However, existing studies only focus on the historical PES and ignore their predictions, which leads to the mismatch and inefficient use in funds for supporting PES (PES funds). This paper takes the regions of Zhejiang-Jiangsu-Shanghai in China as the study area, and develops a systematic method integrating land-use change, CA-Markov model and ecosystem service value (ESV) model to predict the PES standards and optimizes PES funds allocation from 2025 to 2040. The results show that farmland and forest will be largely transformed into construction land. ESV will increase and its distribution will involve significant spatial differences caused by the increase in wetland, water, and forest, and the equivalent factor. The PES funds obtained by this region are obviously underestimated; Taking ecological gain as the basis for optimizing PES fund allocation, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai obtained 274 million USD, 168 million USD and 150 million USD from 2025 to 2040, respectively. This study can provide a reference for governments of developing countries to manage these funds, improve their use efficiency and alleviate regional contradictions. •A systematic framework for predicting future PES standard is provided.•Land use change is integrated into the research of PES prediction.•The future PES standards in the study area are seriously underestimated.•There is a mismatch between PES funds and ecological gains.