Plasma-based ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) exhibits great potential in the direct analysis of raw samples with minimum pretreatment. A variety of plasma-based ionization sources have emerged and presented favorable advantages of their high sensitivity, fast analysis speed, and promising qualitative and quantitative abilities for a wide range of applications. Successive efforts have been made to further improve the plasma-based sources for reliable practical applications. Herein, the instrumentation, mechanisms, novel configurations, and applications of versatile plasma-based AMS techniques have been overviewed, and further perspectives have been discussed in the end.