Soft actuators actuated by compressed gas usually have to be equipped with pneumatic sources with complicated and bulky structures. It’s difficult to integrate pneumatic sources into the soft structures of soft actuators. Here we propose a new design of soft actuator embedded with a compact and lightweight electrochemical pump working as the pneumatic source. The electrochemical pump is designed based on a reversible proton exchange membrane fuel cell (RPEMFC) structure and provide regulated pneumatic pressure to soft actuator by electrically induced reversible liquid-to-gas conversion. The electrochemical pump is robust to pose variations through the structural design. The soft actuator provides excellent performance in terms of deformation stroke and load capacity with the structural design.