Mint made referral fees on every offer they made "You can make 3% more a year by switching to ING Direct, etc". They made plenty of money, and all they needed

Mint made referral fees on every offer they made "You can make 3% more a year by switching to ING Direct, etc". They made plenty of money, and all they needed was scale (which they proved they could do). The brilliance was that the offers were aligned with the user's wants/desires/needs and were super well qualified so Mint could charge more per referral. They weren't created to flip - it was a solid business.