The economic threshold (ET) is one of the major decision-making frameworks for rationalizing herbicides use for better weed management while reducing environmental impacts. The ET is the density of weeds at which the cost of control equals the benefits obtained under particular weed control measure adopted. The ET rejects complete eradication of weeds, but advocates regulating weed populations at economically optimum levels. Control measure is adopted only when weed competition goes beyond a certain limit, thus, it uses certain damage levels for making cost-efficient weed management decisions. Several decision-making models on ET are available with high to low degree of precision. Despite potentials, the adoption of ET models as the major criterion for cost-effective herbicide use has been low. Limitations are building up of seed bank by residual weeds, complexity in estimating ET density, patchy weed distribution, and limited validity in cropping systems with multiple weed species. Yet, the ET-based decision has great potential in designing weed management under single weed dominance in crops. Information on weeds population dynamics in cropping system, biology, ecology and spatial heterogeneity would make determination of ET more precise and reliable, and managing weeds using integrated approach more successful.