What's the difference between a commercial and airline pilot?

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/mobile/airline-and-commercial-pilots.htm

In the link above, if you click on the Pay section then it gives different salaries for a "commercial pilot" and an "airline pilot"
Which role is the one where you fly for big airline companies? (Delta, Alaska, American)

Suppose someone flies a crop dusting aircraft, a helicopter to carry staff between shore and a drilling platform, or a medical evacuation air ambulance; they get paid of it, that is their full time job? Then they are commercial pilots. And they do not fly for an airline.

All Airline pilots are commercial pilots, not all commercial pilots fly for airlines. A commercial pilot is anyone that is paid for flying. That could be anything from doing pipeline patrol in a Cessna to flying a business jet.

There's a separate license for airline pilots, the Airline Transport Pilot license, which is required to act as the captain of a scheduled airline flight, In the US, the ATP is required to serve as an airline copilot as well.

The difference in requirements for basic qualification between an ATP and commercial license is age and flight time. For the ATP you must be 21 with 1500 hours logged, for the commercial 18 years old with 250 hours logged.

One pilot actually works for an airline while the other one doesn't.

A commercial pilot is anyone that makes money from flying. An airline pilot normally carries passengers. Flying passengers involves a lot more responsibility and comes with a correspondingly larger paycheck.

It looks like theirs a 3 letter difference to me.

Did you happen to notice that on the bls website, there's a description that explains the difference between airline and commercial pilots?

"Airline pilots fly for airlines that transport people and cargo on a fixed schedule. Commercial pilots fly aircraft for other purposes, such as charter flights, rescue operations, firefighting, aerial photography, and aerial application of agricultural materials."

So Delta, Alaska, and American pilots are obviously airline pilots. In layman's terms only, an airline pilot IS a commercial pilot, since he/she flies in a commercial, money-making enterprise. The confusion often happens when discussing the CERTIFICATES held by pilots, as they mean very different things. A Commercial Pilot Certificate can be obtained with as little as 250 hours of flight time, and it does give the pilot limited privileges for making money, for example aerial photo work. As the pilot gains more flight experience and ratings, they get more opportunities, for example they can start carrying passengers in single-engine planes, for very small airlines at 500 hours total. At this point, the pilot is an airline pilot, even though his certificate may only say "Commercial Pilot".

In contrast, the Airline Transport Pilot Certificate is the "highest" certificate a pilot can get, and with a few exceptions, they must have at least 1500 HOURS total before they can obtain one. In the USA, an ATP is required for any pilot serving as Pilot In Command of a MULTI-ENGINE aircraft in scheduled passenger service. That includes small twin props, all the way to 747 with four engines. Almost all corporate pilots who fly business jets also hold the ATP, as I do. In this case, our certificates say "Airline Transport Pilot", but we can't be called "airline pilot" because we don't fly for an airline and the general public… We only fly private business clients.

Did this help, or did it just make it more confusing?

Airline Is commercial. Commercial means; works for hire--can be agricultural, airlift, etc. Or airline.

Airline takes more experience, prerequisites. Yet starting pay is often lower than a crop duster.

This is what has you confused.