diff --git a/src/providers/redgifs.rs b/src/providers/redgifs.rs
index c948bd7..78645dd 100644
--- a/src/providers/redgifs.rs
+++ b/src/providers/redgifs.rs
@@ -287,9 +287,11 @@ impl RedgifsProvider {
     }
 
     async fn authed_get(&self, url: &str, options: &ServerOptions) -> Result<String> {
-        for attempt in 0..2 {
-            let force_refresh = attempt > 0;
+        const ATTEMPTS: u32 = 3;
+        let mut force_refresh = false;
+        for attempt in 0..ATTEMPTS {
             let token = self.redgifs_token(options, force_refresh).await?;
+            force_refresh = false;
             let mut requester = requester_or_default(options, CHANNEL_ID, "authed_get");
             let response = requester
                 .get_raw_with_headers(
@@ -302,7 +304,17 @@ impl RedgifsProvider {
                 .await
                 .map_err(|error| Error::from(format!("request failed for {url}: {error}")))?;
 
-            if response.status().as_u16() == 401 && attempt == 0 {
+            let status = response.status().as_u16();
+            let last_attempt = attempt + 1 == ATTEMPTS;
+            if status == 401 && !last_attempt {
+                force_refresh = true;
+                continue;
+            }
+            // RedGifs rate-limits bursty search/browse traffic with 429s; retry
+            // the same token after a short backoff instead of surfacing an
+            // empty result set to the client.
+            if status == 429 && !last_attempt {
+                tokio::time::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(1)).await;
                 continue;
             }
             if !response.status().is_success() {