Spinal metastatic disease is known to affect over one third of all patients who die from cancer, and represents a unique challenge given the common presentation of pain, neurological deficits, and/or severe impairments in quality of life. Recently, quality of life (QOL) outcome tools have become part of most outcome research studies, but metastatic spine disease-specific tools did not exist until recently. In this article, we review the most commonly used QOL tools in spine tumor research, and provide an in-depth review of the relatively new Spine Oncology Study Group Outcome Questionnaire. QOL reporting in spine research has become increasingly important, but future research into the validity of these tools is needed.