The main goal of this study was the investigation of various extraction procedures of the Echinacea purpurea plant material in order to optimize the yield of phenolic compounds, such as caftaric acid, caffeic acid, cichoric acid, to establish their relative HPLC retention data together with retention data of rutin and chlorogenic acid and to compare them with the literature data. The most useful was the extraction with methanol or ethanol, followed by extraction with dilute alcohols (60% v/v) after addition of water. Almost the same results were obtained with boiling water. The measured relative retention data for the phenolic compounds are in good agreement with the data found in the very recent literature.