My understanding (for Skoda UK customers and a MY21 Karoq with a built-in eSIM) of the online services are as follows:
1) The eCall Service allowing an automatic or manual SOS call is quoted as being free for the life of the car. (I believe this is required by EU regulations, but would hope Skoda UK do not remove this now we are not in the EU!)
2) The Proactive Service is free for the first 10 years. This includes breakdown calls to Skoda Assist (but I presume you have to resubscribe to this after 3 years?) , Information calls to Skoda Customer Support, Vehicle Health Reports via the Connect app, Service Scheduling, Online Personalisation (transfers your personal settings to another Skoda car), and Online System Updates.
3) The Remote Access Service is free for the first year only, then costs 60 euros a year to renew (often reduced to 39 euros). This lets the Connect app provide Driving Data, Parking Position (handy when you've parked in a strange city and explored it), Vehicle Status (doors and windows closed etc), Notifications is someone has driven your car out of a selected area or faster than a selected speed, sound the car's horn or flash its lights, or receive a, email warning if the car alarm goes off. Note that the Driving Data and Parking Position can be obtained via the Connect Lite app for free if you have a Dataplug. And the Vehicle Status reports seemed to be stored shortly after the ignition is turned off when you may still have doors or the boot open. So if it reports they are open, you need to update it via the Connect app to get the current status.
4) The Infotainment Online Service is also free for the first year, and then costs 70 euros a year to renew (often reduced to 49 euros). This provides online map updates for your local area (Customer Services say this is the country you are in) as well as any remote areas you navigate to, online traffic information, parking spaces and prices, filling stations and prices, an online route calculation which assesses traffic congestion on your route, the voice control system, importing POIs and routes via the Connect portal (although this is not yet available), and an online shop to buy additional functions and services. As they have disabled the USB map update function, this is the only way to keep maps updated!
All the above include their own data allowance, and so do not need an additional dataplan from Cubic Telecom. Reading their website, they only say that buying one of their dataplans (7 euros for 2GB/30 days, 15 euros for 5GB/90 days, or 72 euros for 25GB/365 days) provide you with a WiFi hotspot in the car so other passengers can access the internet via smartphones, tablets etc.
However after trying for months to access web radio stations (without a Cubic dataplan), yesterday I tried using my phone as a Mobile Hotspot and connected my Amundsen to that rather than the eSIM. The web radio feature then worked instantly, so if you don't mind using your phone's data allowance rather than buying a Cubic dataplan you can listen to web radio stations and podcasts that way. There is no mention of web radio services needing a dataplan in the manual or other documentation, although Customer Support's technical experts had thought this could be why I couldn't access the feature. It would of course help other owners if this was documented somewhere!!
Hope this helps,
Chris