diff --git a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/ark.ts b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/ark.ts
index 4bb093cdb..0013b06ce 100644
--- a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/ark.ts
+++ b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/ark.ts
@@ -47,9 +47,11 @@ export async function callArk(args: CallArkArgs): Promise<ChatCallResult> {
     // failure was Ark returning empty `choices[0].message.content` or
     // exceeding the 120s wall clock, not a model-quality issue (the
     // model itself routed to the right element tool 80% of the time
-    // when it did respond). One retry is the minimum that flips most
-    // of those into successes; bumping higher would mostly waste
-    // budget on the genuinely broken minority.
-    retries: 1,
+    // when it did respond). retries=1 left 36 empty + 15 timeout + 4
+    // 429 still leaking through ab-v3 (520 calls); retries=2 with
+    // exponential backoff gives the provider a 1000ms recovery window
+    // before the third attempt, which on Ark's coding tier is usually
+    // enough to clear the upstream brownout.
+    retries: 2,
   });
 }
diff --git a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/deepseek.ts b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/deepseek.ts
index 1997be4b6..a05e02be4 100644
--- a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/deepseek.ts
+++ b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/deepseek.ts
@@ -40,9 +40,9 @@ export async function callDeepSeek(args: CallDeepSeekArgs): Promise<ChatCallResu
     maxTokens: args.maxTokens,
     label: 'deepseek',
     // ab-v2 garbage attribution: 6 of 40 deepseek-v4-pro runs returned
-    // empty content (server-side flakiness, not model output). Same
-    // rationale as ark.ts — one retry recovers the transient ones,
-    // anything more would mostly burn budget on real failures.
-    retries: 1,
+    // empty content (server-side flakiness, not model output). retries=1
+    // recovered most but ab-v3 still leaked 6 empty-content errors.
+    // Bumped to 2 alongside ark to share the exponential backoff window.
+    retries: 2,
   });
 }
diff --git a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/minimax.ts b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/minimax.ts
index 8a01d5b8b..d40587c4f 100644
--- a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/minimax.ts
+++ b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/minimax.ts
@@ -35,5 +35,10 @@ export async function callMinimax(args: CallMinimaxArgs): Promise<ChatCallResult
     temperature: args.temperature,
     maxTokens: args.maxTokens,
     label: 'minimax',
+    // ab-v3 saw 4 minimax timeouts on 104 runs — all wall-clock aborts,
+    // none were content-quality issues. One retry picks up the
+    // recoverable ones without burning budget on the truncation /
+    // <think> chatter that characterizes minimax model-side failures.
+    retries: 1,
   });
 }
diff --git a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/openai-compat.ts b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/openai-compat.ts
index 64e461fd3..36ad9b2ac 100644
--- a/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/openai-compat.ts
+++ b/scripts/ab-corpus/clients/openai-compat.ts
@@ -70,16 +70,20 @@ export interface CallOpenAICompatArgs {
    */
   timeoutMs?: number;
   /**
-   * Retry attempts on transient errors. Default 0 (no retry). Set to 1
+   * Retry attempts on transient errors. Default 0 (no retry). Set to 2
    * for providers known to flake on empty content / timeout (Ark hosting
-   * GLM-5.1+Kimi-K2.6, DeepSeek api.deepseek.com). MiniMax / Bailian /
-   * Codex don't enable this — their ab-v2 failures were model-quality
-   * (truncation, malformed DSL), where retry burns budget for nothing.
+   * GLM-5.1+Kimi-K2.6, DeepSeek api.deepseek.com). 1 is enough for
+   * MiniMax (saw 4 timeouts in 104 ab-v3 runs); Codex / Bailian don't
+   * enable this — their ab-v2 failures were model-quality (truncation,
+   * malformed DSL), where retry burns budget for nothing.
    *
    * Retried: empty `choices[0].message.content`, abort/timeout, HTTP 5xx,
    * HTTP 429. NOT retried: HTTP 4xx other than 429 (auth / bad request).
    *
-   * Backoff: linear, 250ms × (attempt+1).
+   * Backoff: exponential, 250ms × 4^attempt — 250ms before retry 1,
+   * 1000ms before retry 2, 4000ms before retry 3. Linear backoff was
+   * too tight when retries=2 (500ms then 750ms is < a typical Ark
+   * recovery window); exponential gives the provider room to settle.
    */
   retries?: number;
 }
@@ -105,13 +109,14 @@ export async function callOpenAICompat(args: CallOpenAICompatArgs): Promise<Chat
       if (attempt === retries || !isTransientError(lastErr)) {
         throw lastErr;
       }
+      const delayMs = 250 * 4 ** attempt;
       console.error(
-        `[${label}] transient error on attempt ${attempt + 1}/${retries + 1}, retrying: ${truncate(
+        `[${label}] transient error on attempt ${attempt + 1}/${retries + 1}, retrying in ${delayMs}ms: ${truncate(
           lastErr.message,
           200,
         )}`,
       );
-      await sleep(250 * (attempt + 1));
+      await sleep(delayMs);
     }
   }
   throw lastErr ?? new Error(`${label}: callOpenAICompat exited loop without result`);