| Questions are being raised over how long Kate and Gerry McCann can continue the hunt for their daughter after a huge slump in donations to Madeleine's Fund.
When the young girl vanished on May 3, cash poured in to find her, but now it is comparatively little more than a trickle.
The fund has £1,095,223.50 in its coffers, according to its website.
But an estimated three-quarters of this will just be used to pay the six-month contract the McCanns took out with detective agency Metodo 3.
The Spanish-based agency is likely to be charging around £2,000 a day, crime experts have told Sky News Online.
When travel and other expenses are added, the final bill for the contract is likely to be as much as £750,000.
And this does not cover the cost of publicity campaigns and other expenses as the McCanns focus their search on Morocco - the area they have been told Madeleine is most likely to be in.
The McCanns are also using other specialists. But their spokesman Clarence Mitchell's reported £75,000 salary is being covered by millionaire Brian Kennedy.
Other wealthy benefactors - like Richard Branson - have offered financial support to cover their legal bills.
But it is not known how much money, if any, they have pledged towards the fund itself. Or whether they would step in if the McCanns ran out of cash.
The couple, both 39, saw a massive drop in donations after they were named official suspects in the case, and it emerged they had used the fund to pay their estimated £2,000 a month mortgage.
Their spokesman told Sky News Online it is natural for the flow of money to diminish after a fund's launch.
But in Madeleine's case, this is not due to a lack of publicity as her story regularly features on the front pages, even six months after she vanished.
The fund raised around £450,000 a month after its launch, but this has now plummeted to around £30,000 a month, according to its website.
Mr Mitchell admits: "The money has slowed down - that's only natural. Money pours in at the start and dries up after a while, it's natural."
He added: "Money is still coming in - not at the vast rate it was initially...It's a steady income rather than big amounts."
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