The lifetime was 5 years of constant use.  The fabric has now faded, and after raising teenagers they have seen better days.  We are back to Wayfair to look for some new ones - but feel perfectly satisfied that we got 5 years of life out of a stool we paid way less than $100 a piece.  We could have spent $400 a stool and had got a potentially longer life, but its more fun to get new and fresh now and again ....