A novel flow system for the spectrophotometric determination of dipyrone with p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde exploiting the multi-pumping approach was developed. The proposed methodology utilises several micro-pumps for propelling the involved fluids under improved mixing conditions, introducing sample/reagent aliquots and providing commuting facilities. As a consequence the multi-pumping system presents high versatility and manifold simplicity, as well as a straightforward operational control and enhanced analytical capabilities. Linearity of the analytical curve was observed within 10 and 400 mg l(-1) dipyrone (r=0.9997; n=6), results were precise (r.s.d.<0.12%; n=20) and sampling rate was 50 h(-1). Detection limit was estimated as 1 mg l(-1) dipyrone. The method was applied to pharmaceutical preparations and the results were in agreement with those obtained by the reference procedure with relative deviations within -1.7 and +2.2%.