Wireless sensor networks(WSNs) nowadays considered as a hot research topic because of its wide range of applications in various fields. Recently, advancement in electronic communications has led to multi-purpose sensor nodes with low-cost and power consumption. Wireless sensor networks are composed of limited power sensors, which their power supply could not be replaced or recharged. So, less power consumption will increase the lifetime of these networks. Therefore, providing efficient routing algorithms with less energy consumption is desirable. Among many routing algorithms, approaches based on clustering, result less energy consumption. In this article, all well-known routing algorithms based on clustering which focus on saving energy got reviewed. Each algorithm is described in detail and its pros and cons are discussed explicitly. Then some important metrics such as scalability, message overhead and algorithm complexity are used for comparing cluster-based algorithms and give an insight to challenges in this field.