diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 5854ec2..6e39c78 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -123,6 +123,18 @@ my-dynamodb-journal.aws-client-config.max-connections = <your value here>
 
 Changing this number changes both the number of concurrent connections and the used thread-pool size.
 
+## Retry behavior
+
+This plugin uses exponential backoff when plausible and retriable errors from DynamoDB occur. This includes network glitches (50x; since Pekko 1.1.0) and throughput exceptions (400; extended in Pekko 1.1.0).
+
+The backoff strategy is very simple. 
+- There are a maximum of 10 retries.
+- The first time it retries, it takes 1 millisecond.
+- That time is doubled with every retry.
+
+This means that the last waiting time would be about half a second, and if responses would be immediate, the total retrial process would take about 1 second. In practice, response time would be more than 0 of course.
+
+
 ## Compatibility with Akka versions
 
 pekko-persistence-dynamodb is derived from [akka-persistence-dynamodb](https://github.com/akka/akka-persistence-dynamodb) v1.3.0.
diff --git a/src/main/scala/org/apache/pekko/persistence/dynamodb/journal/DynamoDBHelper.scala b/src/main/scala/org/apache/pekko/persistence/dynamodb/journal/DynamoDBHelper.scala
index 5dd3bb7..e48e2b0 100644
--- a/src/main/scala/org/apache/pekko/persistence/dynamodb/journal/DynamoDBHelper.scala
+++ b/src/main/scala/org/apache/pekko/persistence/dynamodb/journal/DynamoDBHelper.scala
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 
 package org.apache.pekko.persistence.dynamodb.journal
 
-import com.amazonaws.AmazonWebServiceRequest
+import com.amazonaws.{ AmazonServiceException, AmazonWebServiceRequest }
 import com.amazonaws.handlers.AsyncHandler
 import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.AmazonDynamoDBAsyncClient
 import com.amazonaws.services.dynamodbv2.model._
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ import pekko.event.LoggingAdapter
 import pekko.pattern.after
 import pekko.persistence.dynamodb.{ DynamoDBConfig, Item }
 import pekko.util.ccompat.JavaConverters._
+import pekko.annotation.InternalApi
 
 import java.util.{ concurrent => juc }
 
@@ -32,6 +33,36 @@ import scala.concurrent.duration._
 case class LatencyReport(nanos: Long, retries: Int)
 private class RetryStateHolder(var retries: Int = 10, var backoff: FiniteDuration = 1.millis)
 
+/**
+ * Auxiliary object to help determining whether we should retry on a certain throwable.
+ */
+@InternalApi
+private object DynamoRetriableException {
+  def unapply(ex: AmazonServiceException) = {
+    ex match {
+      // 50x network glitches
+      case _: InternalServerErrorException =>
+        Some(ex)
+      case ase if ase.getStatusCode >= 502 && ase.getStatusCode <= 504 =>
+        // retry on more common server errors
+        Some(ex)
+
+      // 400 throughput issues
+      case _: ProvisionedThroughputExceededException =>
+        Some(ex)
+      case _: RequestLimitExceededException =>
+        // rate of on-demand requests exceeds the allowed account throughput
+        // and the table cannot be scaled further
+        Some(ex)
+      case ase if ase.getErrorCode == "ThrottlingException" =>
+        // rate of AWS requests exceeds the allowed throughput
+        Some(ex)
+      case _ =>
+        None
+    }
+  }
+}
+
 trait DynamoDBHelper {
 
   implicit val ec: ExecutionContext
@@ -57,7 +88,7 @@ trait DynamoDBHelper {
       val handler = new AsyncHandler[In, Out] {
         override def onError(ex: Exception) =
           ex match {
-            case e: ProvisionedThroughputExceededException =>
+            case DynamoRetriableException(_) =>
               p.tryFailure(ex)
             case _ =>
               val n = name
@@ -81,12 +112,16 @@ trait DynamoDBHelper {
     val state = new RetryStateHolder
 
     lazy val retry: PartialFunction[Throwable, Future[Out]] = {
-      case _: ProvisionedThroughputExceededException if state.retries > 0 =>
+      case DynamoRetriableException(ex) if state.retries > 0 =>
         val backoff = state.backoff
         state.retries -= 1
         state.backoff *= 2
+        log.warning("failure while executing {} but will retry! Message: {}", name, ex.getMessage())
         after(backoff, scheduler)(sendSingle().recoverWith(retry))
-      case other => Future.failed(other)
+      case other: DynamoDBJournalFailure => Future.failed(other)
+      case other =>
+        val n = name
+        Future.failed(new DynamoDBJournalFailure("failed retry " + n, other))
     }
 
     if (Tracing) log.debug("{}", name)