Developing economic traits with a high growth rate, robustness, and disease resistance in livestock is an important challenge. RFLP and AFLP are the classical methods used to develop economic traits. Whole-genome-based economic traits have recently been detected with the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. However, NGS technologies are rather costly for use in studies, and RNA-seq, RAD-Seq, RRL, MSG, and GBS have been used to overcome the issue of high costs. In this study, recent NGS-based studies were reviewed, particularly those that focused on minimum costs and maximum effects. Then, we presented further prospects on how to apply for selection of high economic-trait livestock.