The performance of 7-benzamido-4-methylcoumarin (B) and 7-acetamido-4-methylcoumarin (C) as fluorescent probes for monitoring of progress of cationic photopolymerization of monomers by fluorescence probe technology has been evaluated in comparison with 7-diethylamino-4-methylcoumarin (A). It has been found that the probes B and C do not cause such a delay of the polymerization start as the probe A does, but in the case of B and C, the cure monitoring using the fluorescence intensity ratio at two wavelengths as an indicator of the polymerization progress is not applicable. An alternative monitoring parameter has been applied successfully and a method for compensation of the effects of probe photolysis is proposed. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 4522-4528, 2010