Zipline starts Walmart drone deliveries in a Dallas suburb, free for now

MESQUITE, Texas, April 2025 — Zipline has begun home drone delivery for Walmart in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Here's what launched, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of April 2025)

Coverage: households within 2 miles of the Mesquite Walmart Supercenter, choosing from more than 65,000 items, delivered "in 30 minutes or less." (FreightWaves)
Price to customers: free at launch; Walmart will set the price. (FreightWaves)
Payload: up to 8 pounds within a 10-mile radius, per CNBC. (CNBC)
Cost to Walmart or Zipline: not disclosed.

What launched

Zipline's new P2 system pairs a drone with a smaller "Zip" that lowers on a tether to drop a package. CEO and co-founder Keller Rinaudo Cliffton said the P2 Zips have "dinner plate-level" accuracy and can fly through rain or wind gusts of up to 45 miles per hour, CNBC reported. The P2 takes off vertically on five propellers, then cruises on a fixed wing, and carries 8 pounds, compared with 6 pounds for Zipline's older P1, FreightWaves reported. Rinaudo Cliffton said the service delivers 10 times faster than cars, with most flights under two minutes. Orders can be placed from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends, FreightWaves reported.

Before the public launch, Mesquite residents had tested the service in an early-access program. "We've been blown away by the feedback from our early customers," said Conner Wilkinson, Zipline's head of community engagement. "In just a few weeks, we've already become a part of people's daily routines, especially for busy parents like myself, older adults, and anyone else who wants to spend more time doing things they love and less time running errands."

On X, Rinaudo Cliffton wrote: "After 4 years and hundreds of thousands of test flights, teleportation is finally here."

The track record behind it

Zipline has completed nearly 1.5 million deliveries since 2016, mostly medical cargo in Africa, and says its drones have flown more than 100 million miles, FreightWaves reported. Its only U.S. home-delivery work before this was a Walmart pilot in Arkansas that began in 2021, FreightWaves reported.

Walmart told CNBC it has completed more than 120,000 drone deliveries to homes since 2021, through Zipline and other partners. It says its 4,600 stores sit within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population. Rival Wing has made about 450,000 residential deliveries since 2012, FreightWaves reported.

FreightWaves noted the launch comes months after a change in Walmart's work with longtime collaborator DroneUp, which at one point ran 36 hubs across seven states. Zipline plans to add Waxahachie as a second P2 site within weeks and to grow "significantly" in the area over five months.

What's changed

This is the starting point for the series. Zipline moves from rural medical deliveries and a small Arkansas pilot to suburban home delivery, with a new aircraft, in a metro area that already hosts Wing. Walmart said in 2024 that it would offer drone delivery to 1.8 million households in the area, FreightWaves reported.

What went wrong

No price yet. Walmart is giving the service away at launch, so demand at a real price is untested.
Small zone. Eligibility starts at about 2 miles from one store, though the aircraft can serve a 10-mile radius.
Self-reported safety. Mileage and delivery totals are Zipline's own.
What we don't know yet: the cost per delivery, how many households are eligible, and how often deliveries fail or are canceled for weather.

Our follow-up question for Walmart and Zipline

What will Walmart charge for drone delivery, and what does each delivery cost to run?

Later developments (added Oct. 2026)

Fox 4 reported on Dec. 9, 2025 that Zipline had made more than 100,000 deliveries in 19 North Texas cities since April and says it makes 1,000 deliveries a day in the area. "Walmart is not yet charging customers for the service," Fox 4 reported. Zipline designer Eric Watson cited 120 million autonomous miles and said: "We've spent over 1 million engineering hours on testing and safety improvements of this aircraft alone." Fox 4 noted FAA investigations into Amazon drone incidents in Waco and near Phoenix. (Fox 4)
On Dec. 23, 2025, the FAA issued a Finding of No Significant Impact for Zipline's Dallas-Fort Worth plan: up to 75 sites and 500 docks, up to 400 deliveries per site per 24-hour day within a 10-mile radius, around the clock, with 5% of flights between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. (FAA)

Sources

Lora Kolodny, CNBC, “Drone delivery startup Zipline expands to Texas with Walmart partnership,” April 8, 2025. cnbc.com
Jack Daleo, FreightWaves, “Zipline drone delivery takes flight in Texas with Walmart – for free,” April 9, 2025. freightwaves.com
Lori Brown, Fox 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, “As DFW drone deliveries soar, can companies ensure safety?,” Dec. 9, 2025. fox4news.com
Federal Aviation Administration, “Finding of No Significant Impact and Record of Decision for Environmental Assessment for Zipline International, Inc. Proposed Drone Package Delivery Operations in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX,” signed Dec. 23, 2025 by Joseph K. Hemler Jr., Manager, AFS-752. faa.gov

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