diff --git a/src/tools/imagegen.ts b/src/tools/imagegen.ts
index cf04bac..c1353ab 100644
--- a/src/tools/imagegen.ts
+++ b/src/tools/imagegen.ts
@@ -283,7 +283,14 @@ function buildExecute(deps: ImageGenDeps) {
   };
 
   const controller = new AbortController();
-  const timeout = setTimeout(() => controller.abort(), 60_000); // 60s timeout
+  // Reference-image mode (gpt-image-2 edits) is meaningfully slower than
+  // pure text-to-image: the model is reasoning-driven and the request
+  // body carries a few MB of base64. The shared 60s budget has to cover
+  // both x402 retry attempts plus the actual generation, which made
+  // image-to-image effectively always time out. Image-to-image gets 3
+  // minutes; text-to-image keeps the original 60s.
+  const timeoutMs = referenceImage ? 180_000 : 60_000;
+  const timeout = setTimeout(() => controller.abort(), timeoutMs);
 
   try {
     // First request — will get 402
@@ -404,7 +411,12 @@ function buildExecute(deps: ImageGenDeps) {
   } catch (err) {
     const msg = (err as Error).message || '';
     if (msg.includes('abort')) {
-      return { output: 'Image generation timed out (60s limit). Try a simpler prompt.', isError: true };
+      return {
+        output: referenceImage
+          ? 'Image-to-image timed out (180s limit). The reference image may be too large or the model under load — try a smaller image or simpler prompt.'
+          : 'Image generation timed out (60s limit). Try a simpler prompt.',
+        isError: true,
+      };
     }
     return { output: `Error: ${msg}`, isError: true };
   } finally {