Sock makers now advertise lifetime guarantees the way mattress stores advertise sales. Darn Tough, Smartwool, Icebreaker: send in the worn pair, get a new pair. Most people read that as marketing fluff. It is closer to a pricing error in your favor, if you actually walk the socks back to the store.
The comparison that matters is cost per decade, not price per pair. A $4 pack of gas-station socks runs about $32 a decade once you count replacements. A $20 guaranteed merino pair runs $20 for the same decade, and the second decade is free, because the guarantee does not expire.
The part nobody says out loud: the guarantee only pays if you mail the socks in. Almost nobody does. The manufacturers know this. The expected cost of a lifetime-guarantee program is a rounding error when 90 percent of buyers never claim it, which is exactly why the offer exists. You beat the system by being the customer who claims it.
Warranty fine print worth checking before you buy: whether the replacement covers wear-through or only manufacturing defects (Darn Tough covers wear; some brands do not), whether you need a receipt (Darn Tough does not), and whether shipping is on you (usually yes, about $5, which still leaves the math lopsided).
The boring conclusion is the right one: buy fewer pairs of the guaranteed kind, actually send back the dead ones, and stop buying socks as an impulse category. Your sock drawer gets smaller and your cost per decade drops by more than half.
The full cost-per-decade ranking with per-pair math: https://durablepicks.com/apparel/lifetime-guaranteed-socks-compared/
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