diff --git a/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/MetricSetConverter.cs b/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/MetricSetConverter.cs
index b04fa87b5..e5c5e3e0e 100644
--- a/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/MetricSetConverter.cs
+++ b/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/MetricSetConverter.cs
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ public override void Write(Utf8JsonWriter writer, MetricSet value, JsonSerialize
 						.Replace('"', '_'));
 					writer.WriteStartObject();
 					writer.WritePropertyName("value");
-					writer.WriteNumberValue(item.KeyValue.Value);
+					writer.WriteNumberValue((decimal)item.KeyValue.Value);
 					writer.WriteEndObject();
 				}
 			}
diff --git a/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/PayloadItemSerializer.cs b/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/PayloadItemSerializer.cs
index 42a04dfc0..ad38182dd 100644
--- a/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/PayloadItemSerializer.cs
+++ b/src/Elastic.Apm/Report/Serialization/PayloadItemSerializer.cs
@@ -4,8 +4,6 @@
 
 using System;
 using System.Collections;
-using System.ComponentModel;
-using System.Globalization;
 using System.IO;
 using System.Linq;
 using System.Text;
@@ -111,9 +109,5 @@ internal T Deserialize<T>(Stream stream)
 	/// </summary>
 	/// <param name="item"></param>
 	/// <returns></returns>
-	internal string Serialize(object item)
-	{
-		var bytes = JsonSerializer.SerializeToUtf8Bytes(item, item.GetType(), Settings);
-		return Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);
-	}
+	internal string Serialize(object item) => JsonSerializer.Serialize(item, item.GetType(), Settings);
 }