Ester and amide derivatives of hydroxycinnamic acids are found in black cohosh (Actaea racemosa) and other Actaea plants. These two compound groups were evaluated for authentication of black cohosh dietary supplements. The hydroxycinnamic acid esters (HCAE) were profiled by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-photodiode array detection (UPLC-PDA). The hydroxycinnamic acid amides (HCAA) were acquired simultaneously by mass spectrometry-multiple reaction monitoring (UPLC-MRM) mode. In contrast with the traditional HCAE method using 8 compounds, profiles of HCAA using only 4 feruloyl dopamine-O-hexosides was more convenient for peak by peak comparison. Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was applied to both HCAE and HCAA datasets. Authenticated plant samples of five Actaea species were randomly divided into training and test sets to build and validate the two PLS-DA models. Both models provided reasonable estimates for the classification of A. racemosa and other Actaea plant samples. However, HCAA model performs better in sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Assessment of supplement samples provided quite different results for the solid and liquid dietary supplement samples, indicating the dosage form could affect the composition of marker compounds. Graphical abstract.