Open WebUI

At the end you have Open WebUI on an OpenAI-compatible API connection at https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1, with one key from the console and every chat model on the list in its model selector, or only the ones you allow. Each message bills per token to the balance behind that key, and the live table below is what a chat turn costs on each model today. Written against Open WebUI v0.12.3, released October 16, 2026; labels read from its docs and source on 2026-10-23.

You need Open WebUI running and signed in with its admin account (the first account created on a new install), an account on the console with credit on it, and one key created there. Create the key for Open WebUI alone, so its requests sit apart from any other tool on the Usage page. Nothing is installed on the UplinkSwitch side: the URL and the key are the whole configuration.

Your avatar → Settings → Admin → Connections, then the list called Manage OpenAI API Connections. In current versions the admin settings open inside the Settings dialog; the Admin Panel item in the user menu leads to users, not connections.

The OpenAI API switch at the top of that page has to be on. A fresh install already has one row there for https://api.openai.com/v1; switch it off or delete it if you have no OpenAI key, so Open WebUI stops asking it for a model list.

1. Click + (Add Connection) next to Manage OpenAI API Connections.
2. Connection Type: leave it on External.
3. URL: https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1 Copy URL with /v1 on the end. Open WebUI adds /models and /chat/completions to exactly what you type.
4. Auth: Bearer, and paste your key into API Key.
5. Click the Verify Connection icon beside the URL. It calls /models with your key and answers Server connection verified.
6. Optional, under Advanced: add ids to Model IDs to list only those models. Left empty, the selector shows every model the URL lists.
7. Optional, also under Advanced: paste {"HTTP-Referer": "https://uplinkswitch.ai", "X-Title": "Open WebUI"} Copy headers into Headers. Open WebUI sends them with every request, and the Usage page records the X-Title as the client app, so this connection's requests show as Open WebUI there.
8. Click Save. The new models are in the selector of a new chat.

The catalog lists every chat model on one URL, which makes for a long selector. Open WebUI's own docs recommend an allowlist for gateways like this one. Under Advanced → Model IDs, type an id, click +, and repeat; the list then replaces the fetched one, and Open WebUI stops calling /models for that connection. After a successful verify the field suggests ids as you type. A starting set:

claude-sonnet-5-5
gpt-6.1-sol
gemini-3.1-pro-preview
deepseek-v4-pro-0813
glm-5.3
kimi-k3
qwen3.6-27b

Any other id from the Models page works the same way, including the uncensored builds.

On a new install you can create the connection before the first start. This is Open WebUI's documented Docker command with the two documented variables added; replace your-secret-key with the output of openssl rand -hex 32.

docker run -d -p 3000:8080 \
  --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway \
  -v open-webui:/app/backend/data \
  -e WEBUI_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key \
  -e OPENAI_API_BASE_URL=https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1 \
  -e OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-uplink-live-... \
  --name open-webui --restart always \
  ghcr.io/open-webui/open-webui:main

Open WebUI reads OPENAI_API_BASE_URL and OPENAI_API_KEY only on the first start of a fresh data volume. On an install that already ran, add the connection in the Admin settings, or start it with ENABLE_PERSISTENT_CONFIG=False so the environment wins over saved settings. The pip route is pip install open-webui then open-webui serve, on Python 3.11 or 3.12; the same variables apply. Every variable is in the environment reference.

Keep an existing provider and add this key beside it: each + adds a row, and each row has its own switch. From the environment, the plural variables take semicolon-separated lists paired by position:

OPENAI_API_BASE_URLS="https://api.openai.com/v1;https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1"
OPENAI_API_KEYS="sk-...;sk-uplink-live-..."

When two connections list the same id, set a Prefix ID under Advanced on one of them, such as uplink. The model then shows as uplink.gpt-6.1-sol, and Open WebUI strips the prefix before the request leaves.

Open WebUI sends the conversation so far with every message, so a turn grows as the chat does. Take a turn of 3,000 input and 600 output tokens; the size is an assumption. The rates are the live catalog, and the last column is the model's latest daily check.

A long chat costs more per turn than a short one for the same reason, so a new chat for a new topic keeps every turn small.

Open WebUI also lets each user add a personal connection that the browser calls itself, under Settings → Connections, once an admin turns on Direct Connections in the Admin Connections page (or sets ENABLE_DIRECT_CONNECTIONS=true). The browser then calls https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1 directly, which this API allows from any origin. Open WebUI marks the feature experimental and keeps the key in the browser's local storage; for a shared install the admin connection above is the one its docs recommend.

• No models in the selector: the URL is missing /v1, or the key is wrong. Run Verify Connection again, or check the key from a terminal with the request below.
• 401: the key is wrong, deleted, or from another account. Copy it again from the console.
• 404 model_not_found: an id in Model IDs has a typo. Copy ids from the Models page rather than typing them.
• 402: the balance or the key's monthly limit is spent. Top up or raise the limit in the console.
• The settings page hangs: an unreachable URL is saved in another row. Remove or fix that row; Open WebUI waits up to 10 seconds per model list by default.

curl https://api.uplinkswitch.com/v1/models \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-uplink-live-..." \
  -H "HTTP-Referer: https://uplinkswitch.ai" \
  -H "X-Title: Open WebUI"

The steps above follow Open WebUI's OpenAI-compatible provider guide. Other tools on the same key are in the integration guides, and the SDK guide covers your own code.