Lipopeptides are versatile molecules that are viable and potential replacements for synthetic surfactants in agricultural, pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic industries. While process optimization and intensification approaches have significantly improved lipopeptide production in terms of yield and productivity, downstream processing options to produce tailor-made lipopeptide products of different degrees of purity for specific applications have received considerably less attention. The use of conventional downstream methods such as solvent extraction, membrane filtration, adsorption and size exclusion has satisfactorily addressed the demand of lipopeptide mixtures to some extent, but the lack of well-established downstream techniques for these molecules still withholds their complete commercial realization. Moreover, fractionation of lipopeptide mixtures into families or individual isoforms is undeveloped, significantly limiting the use of lipopeptides for high end applications. This review highlights the recent developments in downstream processing of lipopeptides and discusses their pertinence on a case-to case basis in obtaining lipopeptides of appropriate purity for distinct and diverse applications. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.