diff --git a/man/systemd-run.xml b/man/systemd-run.xml
index 610c3acd37c..3a1d18dae9a 100644
--- a/man/systemd-run.xml
+++ b/man/systemd-run.xml
@@ -399,8 +399,13 @@
   <refsect1>
     <title>Exit status</title>
 
-    <para>On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure
-    code otherwise.</para>
+    <para>On success, 0 is returned. If <command>systemd-run</command> failed to start the service, a
+    non-zero return value will be returned. If <command>systemd-run</command> waits for the service to
+    terminate, the return value will be propagated from the service. 0 will be returned on success, including
+    all the cases where systemd considers a service to have exited cleanly, see the discussion of
+    <varname>SuccessExitStatus=</varname> in
+    <citerefentry><refentrytitle>systemd.service</refentrytitle><manvolnum>5</manvolnum></citerefentry>.
+    </para>
   </refsect1>
 
   <refsect1>
@@ -503,6 +508,16 @@ There is a screen on:
 
       <programlisting>$ loginctl enable-linger</programlisting>
     </example>
+
+    <example>
+      <title>Return value</title>
+
+      <programlisting>$ systemd-run --user --wait true
+$ systemd-run --user --wait -p SuccessExitStatus=11 bash -c 'exit 11'
+$ systemd-run --user --wait -p SuccessExitStatus=SIGUSR1 bash -c 'kill -SIGUSR1 $$$$'</programlisting>
+
+      <para>Those three invocations will succeed, i.e. terminate with an exit code of 0.</para>
+    </example>
   </refsect1>
 
   <refsect1>
diff --git a/src/run/run.c b/src/run/run.c
index afa9d14af36..de968caf3f8 100644
--- a/src/run/run.c
+++ b/src/run/run.c
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@
 #include "bus-wait-for-jobs.h"
 #include "calendarspec.h"
 #include "env-util.h"
+#include "exit-status.h"
 #include "fd-util.h"
 #include "format-util.h"
 #include "main-func.h"
@@ -1256,7 +1257,7 @@ static int start_transient_service(
 
                 if (arg_wait && !arg_quiet) {
 
-                        /* Explicitly destroy the PTY forwarder, so that the PTY device is usable again, in its
+                        /* Explicitly destroy the PTY forwarder, so that the PTY device is usable again, with its
                          * original settings (i.e. proper line breaks), so that we can show the summary in a pretty
                          * way. */
                         c.forward = pty_forward_free(c.forward);
@@ -1265,43 +1266,52 @@ static int start_transient_service(
                                 log_info("Finished with result: %s", strna(c.result));
 
                         if (c.exit_code == CLD_EXITED)
-                                log_info("Main processes terminated with: code=%s/status=%i", sigchld_code_to_string(c.exit_code), c.exit_status);
+                                log_info("Main processes terminated with: code=%s/status=%i",
+                                         sigchld_code_to_string(c.exit_code), c.exit_status);
                         else if (c.exit_code > 0)
-                                log_info("Main processes terminated with: code=%s/status=%s", sigchld_code_to_string(c.exit_code), signal_to_string(c.exit_status));
+                                log_info("Main processes terminated with: code=%s/status=%s",
+                                         sigchld_code_to_string(c.exit_code), signal_to_string(c.exit_status));
 
                         if (timestamp_is_set(c.inactive_enter_usec) &&
                             timestamp_is_set(c.inactive_exit_usec) &&
                             c.inactive_enter_usec > c.inactive_exit_usec) {
                                 char ts[FORMAT_TIMESPAN_MAX];
-                                log_info("Service runtime: %s", format_timespan(ts, sizeof(ts), c.inactive_enter_usec - c.inactive_exit_usec, USEC_PER_MSEC));
+                                log_info("Service runtime: %s",
+                                         format_timespan(ts, sizeof ts, c.inactive_enter_usec - c.inactive_exit_usec, USEC_PER_MSEC));
                         }
 
                         if (c.cpu_usage_nsec != NSEC_INFINITY) {
                                 char ts[FORMAT_TIMESPAN_MAX];
-                                log_info("CPU time consumed: %s", format_timespan(ts, sizeof(ts), (c.cpu_usage_nsec + NSEC_PER_USEC - 1) / NSEC_PER_USEC, USEC_PER_MSEC));
+                                log_info("CPU time consumed: %s",
+                                         format_timespan(ts, sizeof ts, (c.cpu_usage_nsec + NSEC_PER_USEC - 1) / NSEC_PER_USEC, USEC_PER_MSEC));
                         }
 
                         if (c.ip_ingress_bytes != UINT64_MAX) {
                                 char bytes[FORMAT_BYTES_MAX];
-                                log_info("IP traffic received: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof(bytes), c.ip_ingress_bytes));
+                                log_info("IP traffic received: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof bytes, c.ip_ingress_bytes));
                         }
                         if (c.ip_egress_bytes != UINT64_MAX) {
                                 char bytes[FORMAT_BYTES_MAX];
-                                log_info("IP traffic sent: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof(bytes), c.ip_egress_bytes));
+                                log_info("IP traffic sent: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof bytes, c.ip_egress_bytes));
                         }
                         if (c.io_read_bytes != UINT64_MAX) {
                                 char bytes[FORMAT_BYTES_MAX];
-                                log_info("IO bytes read: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof(bytes), c.io_read_bytes));
+                                log_info("IO bytes read: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof bytes, c.io_read_bytes));
                         }
                         if (c.io_write_bytes != UINT64_MAX) {
                                 char bytes[FORMAT_BYTES_MAX];
-                                log_info("IO bytes written: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof(bytes), c.io_write_bytes));
+                                log_info("IO bytes written: %s", format_bytes(bytes, sizeof bytes, c.io_write_bytes));
                         }
                 }
 
-                /* Try to propagate the service's return value */
-                if (c.result && STR_IN_SET(c.result, "success", "exit-code") && c.exit_code == CLD_EXITED)
+                /* Try to propagate the service's return value. But if the service defines
+                 * e.g. SuccessExitStatus, honour this, and return 0 to mean "success". */
+                if (streq_ptr(c.result, "success"))
+                        *retval = 0;
+                else if (streq_ptr(c.result, "exit-code") && c.exit_status > 0)
                         *retval = c.exit_status;
+                else if (streq_ptr(c.result, "signal"))
+                        *retval = EXIT_EXCEPTION;
                 else
                         *retval = EXIT_FAILURE;
         }