A rapid, simple and practical high-performance liquid chromatography method coupled with diode array detector (HPLC–DAD) was developed to evaluate the quality of Alisma orientale (Sam.) Juz. through a simultaneous determination of four major active triterpenes using a single standard to determine the multi-components (SSDMCs). Alisol B 23-acetate was selected as the reference compound for calculating the relative response factors. All calibration curves showed good linearity (R240.9998) within test ranges. RSDs for intra- and inter-day of four analytes were less than 3.6% and 2.3%; the overall recovery was 92.1–110.2%(SSDMC). The proposed method was successfully applied to quantify the four components in 20 samples from different localities in China. Moreover, significant variations were demonstrated in the content of these compounds. In addition, hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) and principal components analysis (PCA) were performed to differentiate and classify the samples based on the contents of Alisol C 23-acetate, Alisol A, Alisol A 24-acetate and Alisol B 23-acetate. This simple, rapid, low-cost and reliable HPLC–DAD method using SSDMC is suitable for routine quantitative analysis and quality control of A. orientale (Sam.) Juz.