diff --git a/st2api/st2api/controllers/v1/actionexecutions.py b/st2api/st2api/controllers/v1/actionexecutions.py
index 714f1977f1..4ff9f023fe 100644
--- a/st2api/st2api/controllers/v1/actionexecutions.py
+++ b/st2api/st2api/controllers/v1/actionexecutions.py
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 from oslo_config import cfg
 from six.moves import http_client
 from mongoengine.queryset.visitor import Q
+import zstandard
 
 from st2api.controllers.base import BaseRestControllerMixin
 from st2api.controllers.resource import ResourceController
@@ -438,12 +439,16 @@ def get(
             # For new JSON storage format we just use raw value since it's already JSON serialized
             # string
             response_body = result["result"]
-
+            try:
+                response_body = zstandard.ZstdDecompressor().decompress(response_body)
+                # skip if already a byte string and not compressed
+            except zstandard.ZstdError:
+                pass
             if pretty_format:
                 # Pretty format is not a default behavior since it adds quite some overhead (e.g.
                 # 10-30ms for non pretty format for 4 MB json vs ~120 ms for pretty formatted)
                 response_body = orjson.dumps(
-                    orjson.loads(result["result"]), option=orjson.OPT_INDENT_2
+                    orjson.loads(response_body), option=orjson.OPT_INDENT_2
                 )
 
         response = Response()
diff --git a/st2common/st2common/fields.py b/st2common/st2common/fields.py
index 8ee1a0f603..8ad17d7925 100644
--- a/st2common/st2common/fields.py
+++ b/st2common/st2common/fields.py
@@ -414,7 +414,7 @@ def parse_field_value(self, value: Optional[Union[bytes, dict]]) -> dict:
         data = orjson.loads(data)
         return data
 
-    def _serialize_field_value(self, value: dict) -> bytes:
+    def _serialize_field_value(self, value: dict, zstd=True) -> bytes:
         """
         Serialize and encode the provided field value.
         """
@@ -434,8 +434,9 @@ def default(obj):
                 return list(obj)
             raise TypeError
 
-        value = orjson.dumps(value, default=default)
-        data = zstandard.ZstdCompressor().compress(value)
+        data = orjson.dumps(value, default=default)
+        if zstd:
+            data = zstandard.ZstdCompressor().compress(data)
 
         return data
 
diff --git a/st2common/st2common/services/executions.py b/st2common/st2common/services/executions.py
index 4c190b69fb..a5d3179010 100644
--- a/st2common/st2common/services/executions.py
+++ b/st2common/st2common/services/executions.py
@@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ def update_execution(liveaction_db, publish=True, set_result_size=False):
             with Timer(key="action.executions.calculate_result_size"):
                 result_size = len(
                     ActionExecutionDB.result._serialize_field_value(
-                        liveaction_db.result
+                        value=liveaction_db.result, zstd=False
                     )
                 )
                 kw["set__result_size"] = result_size